Jamiewrites

Adelaide Fringe 2012 Preview

2012-02-12T18:56:00.001+10:30

It's that time again – when I sit down with the Fringe guide and pick out the shows I think are worth seeing. It's a combination of returning shows I've seen before, new shows from people I've seen before, shows that sound interesting, and those featuring friends of mine.

Should you be so interested by what I've written that you want to buy tickets straight away, just click on the link following each entry.

Familiar with their work

Guy Masterson and the Centre for International Theatre

The immensely talented, award-winning actor/director/producer Guy Masterson is back with even more shows than in previous years; the full list is on the website here.

I'll happily recommend all of them, with particular focus on these:

The Ballad of the Unbeatable Hearts

"Globally acclaimed Richard Fry (Bully, Smiler) returns with his 3rd blistering tour-de-verse. A pay-it-forward tale of undaunting hope in the face of stigma and bigotry, Fry's world is so achievable you'll want to become an activist! You'll laugh and cry in the same breath."

Richard's a hugely talented writer/performer, and I loved both Bully and Smiler; word on the street is that this is his best so far, so it's a must-see for me.

Link

Scaramouche Jones

"11pm Millennium Eve. Ancient clown, Scaramouche, gives his final performance, charting a bizarre odyssey through comic misadventures and the century's darkest episodes revealing the loves, brutalities, ecstasies & tragedies beneath his seven white masks."

One of the best shows I've ever seen; you can read my ATG review here. This is definitely one worth seeing.

Link

The Half

"The Actor has sold his car, his father's gold watch and cashed in his life savings to do this show. Everything is riding on it. It's 35 minutes before curtain up to his first performance: Hamlet... solo... uncut… and he's starting to unravel"

It comes down to this: Guy Masterson is one of the best stage actors I've ever seen; ergo, I'll go to pretty much anything he does.

Link

Matthew Carey

Some of the best musicals/cabaret shows I've seen over the last few years have featured this gentleman's magic fingers on the keyboards - A Company of Strangers, the aforementioned Le Gateau Chocolat, Wicked and a whole bunch more.

As usual, he's got those magic fingers in quite a few pies, and they're all going on the list.

LoveBirds

"Direct from their world-premiere at Melbourne International Arts Festival, The LoveBirds will emerge from the foliage of their alluring, colour-speckled underworld, to share provocative, heart-warming tales of wandering souls pining for love. Together, these exquisite voices form a new breed of exotic cabaret. Fall head-over-heels-in-love with these rare, illusive creatures."

Link

Gady Lala – songs for the sophisticated fag hag

"Libby O'Donovan, Catherine Campbell and Sidonie Henbest are three women who know a thing or two about fags, hags & dubious shags. A raucous celebration of the songs that make everyone sing out loud and proud and dance around a sequined handbag… in a sophisticated way of course!"

Link

An Unexpected Variety Show

"Comedian Jenny Wynter fuses stand-up, storytelling, song, improv and character comedy in this unique variety show about the unexpected twists in life, from dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, to finding oneself in the mountains of Canada, to having one's wedding disrupted by an 80-year-old man wearing nothing but a pair of speedos."

Link

What is this Thing Called Love

"Award-winning company, SINGular Productions presents a musical portrait of American composer Cole Porter, filled with his unforgettable songs. In the show, we look back on his life as if it was one of his spectacular stage shows. With numbers and popular hits like "Anything Goes," "It's De-Lovely," and "Night and Day," Porter's elegant, excessive life comes to light - including his deeply complicated relationship with his wife and muse, Linda Lee Porter."

Link

Hot Chillie Box

"The most remembered, celebrated, loved and adored TV show themes to be put together this side of Ramsey Street. Throw in a game show and a few commercial breaks - and get ready to be part of our virtual live studio audience! (Now that's what we're talking 'bout, Willis!)"

Link

Fack to Bront – Who Wears the Pants?

"The Voice of Transition mix it up to find out who really wears the pants, tackling old and new favourites from the music theatre world - with a fresh twist. Straight from fantastic seasons at Fringe and Cabaret Fringe 2011, this highly sought after vocal group will delight and inspire."

Link

La Soiree

"Sexy, funny, dangerous... The award-winning international variety sensation is back. All your favourites and much more – 8 shows only!"

I didn't see La Clique, but I heard good things about it; La Soirée comes courtesy of the same people, and include one of my favourite performers of the last few years, Le Gateau Chocolat. And there's also the very talented Camille O'Sullivan, who I saw I few Fringes back.

Link

Sammy J & Randy in The Inheritance

"Ancient parchments! Royal scandals! Flimsy props! When Randy discovers a family fortune, he seeks to reclaim his rightful throne. Will Sammy J stand in his way? Probably."

Absolutely loved these guys last year; I laughed myself silly. Semi-improv musical comedy at its best.

Link

The Jane Austen Argument

Winners of the 2010 Fringe award for cabaret and directors the show that won the same award in 2011, Tom Dickins and Jen Kingwell are back in Adelaide having supported The Dresden Dolls on their recent Australian tour and have a new show, Under the Rainbow, and will be launching their new album as well. Definitely worth seeing.

Link

Sound & Fury

"Three-time Adelaide 'People's Choice' winners Sound & Fury present the parody mash-up of 'Doctor Faustus,' and every Western film ever made."

The wacky comedy trio are back with a new show, Doc Faustus; they done great shows in the past, including Spaceship Man in 2011, and one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, Private Dick in 2010.

Link

Live on Air with Poet Laureate Telia Nevile

"Stuck in suburbia with too much to say, Poet Laureate Telia Nevile is doing the only thing left open to a word-obsessed socially-inept artiste. She's broadcasting a radio show from her bedroom and you're invited over to pump up the volume."

Telia's show 2011 Fringe show (my review here) was clever, quirky and funny, and I suspect her new one will be of a similar high standard.

Link

DeAnne Smith

"Life's great when you're rich. DeAnne pays strangers to remove her body hair! This 2011 Barry Award Nominee's doing waaaay better than 1.7 billion people in poverty. (This show includes ukulele tunes and free candy.)"

One of the best standups I've seen. Read my review from last year here.

Link

Barry Morgan's World of Organs

"Adelaide's own Barry Morgan, the ultimate organ salesman, will delight and entertain you as he demonstrates the amazing features of the Hammond Aurora Classic. Sit back, relax and be swept away by the mesmerising power of Barry's Zither Arpeggiator, his Fascinating Fingers and his celebrated One Finger Method."

I didn't get around to seeing Barry Morgan last Fringe, but I've seen him a couple of times on Spicks & Specks, and he's hilarious.

Link

Mager & Smythe: In Search of Atlantis

"The AWARD WINNING action-adventure comedy musical about two hapless explorers, who go on a journey into the unknown to find the sunken city of Atlantis."

I reviewed this show when it was here in 2010; you can read about it here.

Link

The Year of Magical Wanking

"Neil Watkins has wanked more than is healthy, allegedly. One of Ireland's most exciting artists and incendiary performers, Neil is a force of nature, a maverick, a 33-year old homosexual with a Jesus complex. Nominated for Best Performer and Best New Play, Dublin Fringe 2011."

Adelaide ex-pat Daniel Clarke, the man behind the 2010 Fringe production of My Name is Rachel Corrie (my review here; it won Hannah Norris best actor at that year's ATG awards) returns with a new show.

Link

New Coat Of Paint: The Songs Of Tom Waits

"An intoxicating journey through the songs of blues legend Tom Waits. Intimate, sexy, funny and thoughtful 'New Coat of Paint' showcases the talents of Alison Coppe and Aaron Nash, backed by some of Adelaide's finest musicians. Expect jazz, blues and in true Waits fashion, women and booze."

Aaron Nash provided the music for the 2011 production of The Pillowman I stage managed (and wrote about here), so I know first-hand that he knows what he's doing. Plus it's the music of Tom Waits, which is a huge drawcard.

Link

Things that sound interesting

Drowning in Veronica Lake

"Brilliant and beautiful, in 1942 Veronica Lake was the hottest discovery in Hollywood. Now, forty years after her death, trapped somewhere between Paramount and Purgatory, she battles her lust for stardom, booze, the wrong men and her spectacular decline into obscurity. "A Stunning Performance" Dominion Post, Wellington NZ."

Link

Jane Austen is Dead

"You're searching for Mr Darcy but the only men at the pub seem to be Mr Wickham, or even worse... Mr Collins! Has Jane Austen been misleading us? Is it possible to find love in today's world of texting, facebook and drunken sex in disabled toilets?"

Link

Friends in the business

I know a few people doing shows this Fringe, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to give them a plug.

Fät Wânk

"Some people think art is a load of wank. Other people think a load of wank is art. Our protagonist believes art could be the answer as he heads on an absurd exploration of life through religion, drugs, love and office work to discover if it's just a Fät Wânk."

Link

Amouse-Bouche

"From the team that brought you the TalkFringe Top Ten Audience Favourite 2011 comes Gluttony's Tonight Show. Gorge on the best of the Fest. From comedy to cabaret, interviews and previews, with new guests each night, games and giveaways. It's got all you need to fill your Fringe appetite."

Link

An Anarchist at the Demo

"Featuring the work of Australian playwright Van Badham, this show presents two of her shorter plays, 'An Anarchist at Dinner' and 'We Met at the Demo', in an unprecedented double bill packed with black humour, pithy commentary on modern Australian society and unexpected plot twists!"

Link

Status Update: A Guide To Early 21st C Life Inc, But Not Limited To, Globalisation/GFC, Social Networking, Compassion Fatigue, Sexting And Angry Birds

"Life today is challenging. We face all the old problems ... as well as a bunch of new ones. Kylie struggles to manage time, find truelove, master her new iPhone & find the eggs without cheating. You'll see a bit of yourself & a lot of your singleslightlycrazyBFF."

Link

Neil Simon's The Odd Couple

"As written by award winning playwright Neil Simon, this hilarious comedy surrounds the mismatched friendship of two young men trying to share an apartment. However their lifestyles, and ideas of housekeeping, are as different as night and day."

Link

At the Movie with Peaches 'n' Gin Burlesque

"See your favorite blockbuster hits as you've never seen them before! This rom-com, action and slapstick burlesque show bursts onto the stage with singing, dancing and teasing by premier burlesque artists Luna Eclipse, Sapphire Snow, The Strawberry Siren and special guests. Movies will never be the same!"

Link

The Fiddle and the Drum - the music of Joni Mitchell

"Exquisite lyricist and breathtaking songwriter, Joni Mitchell has been an inspirational force among four decades of musicians, songwriters and singers. By popular demand, Kathie Renner and Melissa McCaig re-create their tribute to Joni, accompanied by a band of Adelaide’s most soulful and sensitive musical minds"

Link

Further information

Read about my adventures in Fringes past in these posts - one, two, three, four, five and six.

I'll be trying to make regular updates here on the blog, but it'll depend on how busy I am. Proper reviews will appear on the ATG website – you can also follow the ATG on Twitter to get frequent updates on when reviews are posted. I'll no doubt be tweeting regularly, so feel free to follow me if you don't already. The Twitter hashtag for the Fringe is #adlfringe.

The Fringe ticketing website – where you can search for show information as well as buy tickets – is here. Also check out TalkFringe, which is where people post their own short reviews of shows, with ratings – and, since the ratings are aggregated, there's always a list of the most popular shows, which is handy if you aren't sure what to see.

And of course you can contact me at jamiewriteswords@gmail.com and ask me any questions you like.

Hope to see you out and about during Adelaide's fantastic festival season!

A Day at the Cricket

2012-01-28T17:51:00.002+10:30

For the third year in a row I got myself along the the picturesque Adelaide oval to watch some test match cricket; this year it was against India, and was the fourth and final test of the summer – in a series which Australia had dominated; it was, prior to the Adelaide test, 3-0 in our favour.

The powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, had scheduled the test to begin on a Tuesday, a truly mindboggling decision given that the vast majority of people don't actually take time off work to go to the cricket, preferring to go on the weekend. Yes, it would mean that the third day would be the Australia Day public holiday (falling this year on the Thursday), but if they'd made that the first day, they'd have gotten that huge crowd plus good ones on Saturday and Sunday – should the match go into its third and fourth days.

Which, given that none of the other tests had gone to five days – and the last one wasn't that far off being over in two days – would have been a huge concern for them by the time the day rolled around.

Anyway, I had taken Friday and the following Monday off work to give myself (with the public holiday Thursday) a five-day weekend, so I thought that I'd probably go on the Friday – if, of course, we hadn't already won the match by then. Of course I wouldn't know this until late on Thursday, so I wouldn't be making any plans until then.

However, on Tuesday I got an email from a friend who had a couple of Friday tickets which she couldn't use, and she said if I wanted them I could have them. I thought for about two seconds before saying I would take them, and the decision was made. Once Australia ended Tuesday with a decent score and a few wickets in hand – pretty much guaranteeing it would go to the fourth day – it was looking like the right choice.

I couldn't find anyone to take the other ticket I had – I don't have a lot of cricket fans amongst my friends; not really all that surprising, given that most of my Adelaide circle are theatre people – but that didn't bother me too much; I've been on my own before, and it's not a big deal.

What I did need, though, was an AM radio – an item that I don't currently own¹ – so that I could listen to the commentary on ABC 891; apart from the announcements that come through the speakers when a wicket falls or there's a change of bowler, you aren't provided with a lot of information about what's going on. So on the way to the ground I shopped around stores in Rundle Mall before finding one at JB HiFi.

Parked my bike and wandered into the ground to my seat – which was a damn good one: a few rows up in the Chappell stand, with a good view of both sets of stumps. Here's a picture from my seat:

The first session was actually a bit disappointing. Australia's big-hitting opener David Warner had gotten out the previous afternoon, so I wouldn't get to see him bat; however, given the circumstances – we already had a lead of over three hundred and would be sending India back in before too long – I expected that we'd be trying for quick runs.

But this wasn't the case, and what we ended up seeing was pretty much standard test batting. Yes, there were some great shots, but we didn't get any of the extravagance that I thought we'd get.

Anyway, lunch was drawing closer, so I sent a message to my friends Tracey and Sam, who were also going to be at the game – albeit in the Members' section (the opposite side of the ground from my earlier picture) – and we were planning to meet up and have lunch and a drink together. But that plan changed when they discovered they could get me into the Members' as a 'crossover' guest of Sam (who's a member) for $10 – this only applies from day four, though; the first three days it's members only.

So I met Sam at the members/general admission crossover point and headed to the main gate where I logged out with my ticket so I could get the upgrade back at the Members' entrance; however, once we'd gotten back there, we were told we had to go back to the main gate (i.e. where we'd just come from) to do it there. So, we trekked back around to the main gate – a fair distance, especially considering it'd gotten quite warm by then – and finally got it sorted out. And it didn't even cost $10; because my ticket was for the Chappell stand (and therefore worth more) they didn't need the extra money.

I've never been into the Members' section before – thought it probably wouldn't matter if I had, given that they've recently redone it all. We wandered around for bit, collected Tracey and then made our way to the outdoor section, which has tables and chairs and a selection of catering tents – including one for Mumm champagne and another for Pimm's. The seating area looks like this:

Apparently it's not uncommon for people to just come and sit outside all day without actually watching any cricket at all.

We got a jug of Pimm's and sat; I spotted a friend, Daniel, as he passed and had a quick chat to him. By the time we finished the jug the second session had started, so we clambered up a lot of stairs (and one escalator) to the grandstand area where Sam's sister and her husband were. It's across the other side of the pitch from where I was sitting before and the view looked like this:

By this point, of course, Australia had declared for a second time, meaning that India was batting. And this time they were batting well – for a change. So we watched the second session and when they reached tea, we wandered back downstairs and outside. Ran into another friend, Matty B, and spotted Adam Tuominen – Adelaide actor who was in Underbelly: Razor and the Envestra advertisements.

We headed back upstairs for the last session, but went to a different section. It was an exciting session; it started at 2/92, with Tendulkar in and looking to both save the game for India and score his hundredth international century. But the former became a much more unlikely prospect when Dravid was out for 25; three overs later the latter also escaped the Little Master's grasp when he was out for 13. But he got a standing ovation that lasted the entire time it took him to walk from the pitch to the players' exit – it was an amazing feeling to have been part of that.

Kohli and Laxman put together a good stand, but then Laxman got out by hitting a full toss straight to Marsh in the covers. This brought Ishant Sharma to the crease, which prompted Clarke to bring every fielder in close in the hopes of a catch from the spinner, Lyon. And here's a picture:

Not long after that Kohli was run out by a spectacular piece of fielding by Ben Hilfenhaus with one more over remaining in the day's play – which was bowled to Saha, who managed to block out all six balls without much drama.

And then it was time to go home. I'd had an excellent time in which I'd seen some great cricket – including getting to see Tendulkar, who will almost certainly be the world's greatest test run-scorer for many years to come, if not for all time – and got to explore the new section of the grounds and spend some time with friends.

So, all in all, a damn good day. And a hell of a lot better than the last day I'd spent at the cricket - the first day of the 2010 Ashes test against England where we were at one point 3/2, and were eventually all out for 245.

¹Actually, now I think about it, I might still have an old portable cassette player with a radio – but if I do I've no idea where it is.

The week that was #26

2012-01-15T19:42:00.000+10:30

Was out and about a bit this week – I saw a film, a musical and a gig – so I thought it was worth a week-that-was post to bring it all together.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

I'd been looking forward to the Sherlock Holmes sequel ever since I saw the first one (I have a feeling that by the time I saw the first one they'd already announced there was going to be a sequel – and I probably saw it no later than a week or so after it came out at the cinema; it was also set up with a 'sequel hook' at the end) and all the previews I'd seen and buzz I'd heard/read indicated that they'd done a good job of it.

Plus there was the casting news: Stephen Fry was to be portraying Holmes's even-cleverer brother Mycroft, and Jared Harris¹ – who I've liked in everything I've seen him in, particularly his recent appearances in the television shows Fringe and Mad Men – was to be playing his arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

So, with a certain amount of enthusiasm, I – with the other members of the weekly movie-going collective, which this week was six strong – found myself sitting in cinema 1 at Palace in the city. And I was not disappointed; it was an enjoyable film. There were, though, things about it I didn't approve of all that much.

They – the filmmakers – fell victim to that common problem that afflicts sequels: the tendency to just make everything that was good about the original 'bigger' – in this case things like Holmes's eccentricities, Watson's contrasting level-headedness, the humour, the action scenes, the use of slow-motion and so forth. But, while A Game of Shadows suffers a little from this, it's not done so much that it becomes almost a parody of the original – something I wrote about here as being a common problem with sequels.

I also didn't like the fact they left London; one of the things I really enjoyed about the first film was how awesome a job they did of creating late 19th-century London. Leaving the city also meant the absence of one of my favourite characters from the stories, the hapless Inspector Lestrade.

They also introduced the character of Colonel Moran from the books, where he was Moriarty's accomplice and served as – with his military background – a kind of anti-Watson. However, apart from the name of the character, the Moran of the film doesn't closely resemble the Moran of the books, who was older and described as a having been the son of an ambassador and educated at Eton and Oxford; while I wouldn't have minded them keeping the name, the rank – which it seems unlikely someone the age and – if the accent is anything to go by – background² would have achieved.

I did like the film version of Moran, though, which is probably the more important thing. I also liked the character Noomi Rapace (most famous for playing Lisbeth Salander in the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo film and its sequels) played, the gypsy fortune-teller, Sim. The aforementioned Stephen Fry was delightful, as expected; Jared Harris was excellent as the villainous Moriarty – particularly in how he dealt with the subtleties of the character.

Jude Law continues to impress me as Watson – I'm not always a fan of his, at least in the majority of his roles; he has, however, won me over in the two Holmes films, as well as his excellent performance in Road to Perdition. Robert Downey Jr. is once again brilliant as Holmes, though – as I mentioned upthread – his portrayal is a little more over-the-top than in the first film; however, I blame the script and the director for that, not him.

Short verdict: if you liked the first one, you'll almost certainly like this one. It has mostly the same 'feel' – apart from the aforementioned exaggeration of a few aspects – and has plenty of humour, action, and examples of Holmes (and Moriarty as well) being terribly clever.

Oh, and Gladstone the bulldog makes an appearance, which you'll appreciate if you're a bulldog-lover like I am.

¹Who is, if you aren't already aware, son of the late Richard Harris, who played Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, amongst other things.
²It wasn't all that long ago – though it was on its way out at the time the Holmes stories take place – that being an officer in the British Army was only an option if you had a certain social standing and a private income. It certainly changed during WWI, at least in part because so many officers were killed in action; they had to start promoting on merit instead.

The Jungle Book

I got allocated the Hills Youth Theatre production of The Jungle Book to review, so I headed on up the hill to the Stirling Community Theatre to check it out.

You can read the review here.

It was interesting for me because it's really the first large-cast youth show I've seen; while I reviewed the HYT production of Our Town a few years ago, that's an 'adult' play featuring young performers – while this production was a school a holiday show aimed at children.

Not what I expected. Also not what my friend Miriam, who'd I'd brought along with me, had expected either. It was a musical, but it's not – as I noted in the review – a stage version of the 1967 Disney animated version, sticking more to the original Rudyard Kipling stories.

Something I didn't mention in th review was about one of the parts they left in, and which had me rolling with laughter; this was the story of why Mowgli's mother left him in the jungle to begin with.

Basically, she, having given birth out of wedlock, and being (at best) an early teenager at the time (she says she was only a little older than he is now, and also noted it was about ten years ago he was born; I did the maths) was forced by her disapproving family to get rid of him, so she left him in a basket in the jungle (in India – where the jungle is full of tigers, bears, panthers, monkeys, wolves and huge snakes³) and hoped that things would turn out okay.

If that wasn't bad enough, on the off-chance that things _did_ turn out okay for her abandoned bastard, she'd tattooed him with the sign of a cross so that when he showed up again she'd know she'd been reunited with her lost son.

Now that's a message to send to kids!

³Oh my!

The Dresden Dolls (and friends) at The Gov

After spending the last few years working on other projects, Amanda Palmer and Brian Viglione reformed the Dresden Dolls to go on tour; as soon as I heard they were coming to Adelaide I made sure I lined up a ticket.

Since the support acts included the awesome Tom Dickins and Jen Kingwell – better known as The Jane Austen Argument – one of the best alternative cabaret acts in Australia (I saw them twice during the 2011 Fringe and will almost certainly see them that many times during the 2012 Fringe) as well as The Bedroom Philosopher – an Australian musical comedian who I've heard of but never managed to see before; he's also the ex-flatmate of a friend of mine – I was keen to get there pretty early, which on this occasion meant about 7pm.

Which was funny in a way, since it's still daylight at 7pm in Adelaide at this time of year; in fact, it doesn't tend to get dark until about 8.30 – 9.00. I think there's only been one occasion where I've been at The Gov in summer, and that was a few years back when I was there to see Gomez.

Anyway, got there and, after lining up for about twenty minutes or so, stood around waiting for a while since the people I was to meet there had gone in early to have dinner first; I was by myself until they finished eating. But that wasn't too long after I got there, so it was no big deal.

First up was The Jane Austen Argument, who played a handful of songs (only one of which I was sure I'd heard before, which is awesome) and were – as usual – excellent. I'm very happy that they're coming back for the Fringe so I can enjoy their work some more – as well as get my hands on their new album, which they said they'd be launching when they're here.

Bedroom Philosopher was up next, and he was great – some very clever and funny songs, kind of somewhere between Tim Minchin and Flight of the Conchords. Definitely someone I'll try and see again when I get the chance. Oh, and he called for a shoutback from any steampunks in the audience; this was of enormous amusement to me and fellow steampunk enthusiast Christian Reynolds, who was next to me at the time.

Then the Dolls came on and put on an amazing show; I've seen them once before, at the UniBar a few years ago, but that was nothing compared to this. They played for around two and a half hours – which was both good and bad; good for the obvious reasons but bad because a) it meant I'd been standing for something like five hours by the end of it, and my back really doesn't like that; and b) it was a Wednesday night and I had to get up and go to work the next day.

We were standing on the right-hand side of the audience, right in front of Brian and the drum kit; this turned out to be a good position, since it meant I got to watch him play – and he's an excellent drummer⁴. And an energetic one; on a handful of occasions he had to repair his kit, which his furious playing had damaged.

They played most of the songs from their albums, and threw in some great covers – the Beastie Boys anthem (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!); later they rocked an excellent version of my favourite Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds songs, The Mercy Seat.

Afterwards I was very tired – and very stiff; so much so that I couldn't walk properly, and must have looked very funny to anyone walking behind me – but very happy. While I think I probably prefer Amanda Palmer's solo stuff, her shows (in Adelaide at least) are always short; it was good to get a properly-long gig for a change.

⁴Turns out he played drums on several of the tracks on the Nine Inch Nails album Ghosts I-IV – and a perfectionist like Trent Reznor wouldn't have anyone who wasn't pretty kickass on his team.

So, all in all, a rather enjoyably three nights out.

A siren song I'm choosing to ignore

2011-12-14T18:05:00.000+10:30

On the weekend I spent some time playing videogames with friends, specifically games 1 and 2 of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series, as well as Call of Duty: World at War – for the zombie level – and then some old-school Halo: Combat Evolved, the game that we used to play regularly six or seven years ago.

Each of the friends involved owns an X-Box 360, and all expressed the opinion that I, too, should get one so I could join them in their online sessions.

Because, as it is, I don't own an X-Box; nor do I own a Wii or a Playstation. And I don't intend for that to ever change. But it's not because I wouldn't enjoy having one (or even all) – quite the opposite; I enjoy video games, so it's something I'd no doubt get hours of fun out of – and therein lies the problem.

I will play for hour after hour, until I'm in pain – mostly in the shoulders; as it is I already have recurring problems with my right shoulder that stems from gaming – or can't keep my eyes open. For me, eight-, ten-, even twelve-hour sessions weren't uncommon, hence the shoulder problems; using those muscles in that way for that length of time is exactly what the ergonomics people insist we shouldn't be doing at work, and it's not different when it's for fun.

So, yeah. I basically can't trust myself to have one in the house. And it's by no means a recent development.

Having been born in the 70s, I grew up with video games – and I particularly loved the arcade variety, mostly because the consoles of the era (Atari and its clones) were still pretty sucky in comparison. Living in a tiny town in country Queensland, and not being of an overly sporting persuasion (thought at different times I'd played soccer, tennis and cricket and done some pistol shooting; none of them albeit never at any level of seriousness), playing arcade games was one of the few things to do.

One of my proudest moments was when I 'clocked' one particular game, i.e. got such a high score that the numbers went back to zero. I can't remember what it was called, but it was an upright game where you controlled a spaceship, but could move all over the screen (unlike, say Space Invaders and Galaxian and its sequels, where you could only move from side to side) and used a dual-fire weapon system – unlimited single shot and a rapid-fire with a finite amount of 'charge' – to fight butterfly-shaped enemies.

Anyway, no matter what the game was, I spent enough time at it to beat it; even now I think that's pretty cool.

I ended up giving up arcade games – they were changing, with two-player games (like Bubble Bobble and Double Dragon) becoming more prevalent; also, they were starting to get more expensive; 20c wasn't much of an imposition for a game, but 40c or a dollar meant a reasonable session would add up to more than I was willing to spend, given that at that time I didn't have a job and was wholly dependent on the allowance my parents provided – which probably wasn't all that much.

Also, home computing was starting to take off, and I got a Commodore 64, which had some great games available. But, for some reason, I never got as obsessive about any of those as I did with arcade games, or the PC games that sucked me in years later.

It was at uni that I next found myself spending stupid amounts of time playing games; one of my friends at college had Doom, and developed an obsession with that – at exam time one year. I did at least manage to keep enough of a handle on it to make sure I did some study. Another game I wound up playing endlessly during the uni years was Civilization (both I and II), and on more than one occasion I'd found myself still plugging away at until dawn; I also made it all the way through the original World of Warcraft in a few extended sessions.

Speaking of uni: being there meant I never had the time (or funds) to get into the big explosion of console games in the early/mid nineties, though I do remember spending a few hours playing Porsche Boxster Racing on the original Playstation, but not much else.

Cut to a few years later, in Adelaide where I was sharing a house with the some people who were console gamers, and wound up spending some time playing games like Goldeneye and its spiritual successor Perfect Dark on the Nintendo 64; not long after that Microsoft released the X-Box and with it one of the biggest games of recent years, Halo: Combat Evolved.

I played it a bit, but didn't get too into the campaign version (playing what I suppose you'd call a 'traditional' game, where you go through levels) – not sure why; just not quite the right sort of game to suck me in – though I did end up more than a few evenings playing it in a LAN format, i.e. multiplayer with two or more devices hooked up together, with anywhere between three and eight players.

Obviously, that's never going to be too addictive, unless you happen to have a bunch of similarly-minded friends to do it with – which wasn't the case.

Somewhere around this time I got my hands on a Star Wars game, Jedi Academy, and played that for hours on end before realising that I was spending too much time on it, and managed to wean myself off. Having flatmates helped – especially when they'd go out early in the evening and come home hours later to find me in exactly the same spot (at my PC) I was in when they left.

Now, though, I live alone. And I can afford to buy a console and the games to go with it, as well as pay for the appropriate internet connection to play online. So the only real barrier is my fear of it becoming too alluring to resist spending far too much time on.

And, given that since Saturday night I've thought about the games we played about a gazillion times – and, while writing this post, checked out how much the different X-Box 360 packages, and what copies of the games we played that night (as well as the new HD re-release of Halo) cost – I suspect that chances of that are fairly high.

It's actually more than a little embarrassing to admit that I lack the self-control to own a gaming console. But that sad fact is that, while I don't think I'm likely to wind out dead from heart failure brought on by too little sleep and too many Red Bulls, it's still more of a risk than I'm prepared to take.

So, my gaming will be limited to when the other guys in the group are having a LAN evening. The downside to that, of course, is that it means they're going to continue to get better, while I'm going to retain the bunny/target practice/dead meat level of ability I've got now.

Still, probably better than having my filthy, adult-nappy-clad corpse found amidst a pile of discard junk food wrappers in front of a tv screen, controller still clutched in my shrivelled, clawlike hand...

A theatrical discussion

2011-12-04T17:30:00.000+10:30

Sorry about the title. I couldn't come up with anything better.

Anyway, a recent back-and-forth following a comment on a Facebook group set up for people involved in the Adelaide theatre scene has revealed some very strong feelings about several issues, with one of the most significant being the divide between amateur and professional – amongst both performers/producers and critics.

Since I'm an occasional performers/producers and a regular critics it's a discussion I've been following with more than a little interest.

What sparked this was the nominations for the Adelaide Critic's Circle (ACC) awards; specifically, the category of emerging artist. Two performers in amateur productions, both with the Adelaide Theatre Guild – Nigel Tripodi for A View from the Bridge and Robert Bell for The Pillowman¹ – were nominated alongside two professionals: Charles Sanders, artistic director of theatre company Early Worx; and Alex Vickery-Howe, the playwright of Accidental Productions' Molly’s Shoes.

The other categories in the awards are separated into amateur and professional, but this one isn't – and that's annoyed those who are more on the professional side of the fence, who feel it isn't appropriate to mix the two together.

And they've got a point. As seriously as I take my theatre, and as much of my spare time² I devote to it via performing/crewing, seeing shows, writing reviews and contributing to the website, I'd be lying if I said I believed that put me on the same level as those who try to make their living from the arts. I have immense respect for anyone who makes that sacrifice – I know I've never had (nor probably ever will have) the courage and self-belief to try that myself.

So of course I think they do deserve recognition for that, and agree that it seems more than a little strange that the ACC haven't kept the two separate.

It's one of the issues I, as part of the Adelaide Theatre Guide reviewing team, face each year when it comes time for us to sit down and decide the nominees for our awards, the Curtain Calls. Sometimes the divide is not so straightforward – several companies/productions include both paid and unpaid performers – and then there's the issue that came up this year when the Adelaide College of the Arts were thrown into the mix with their stunning production of Sweeney Todd.

The performers are students, so they aren't paid – but they're also being trained, and have had to meet what is presumably a high standard in order to get in. Plus they're being taught/mentored by trained, experienced and paid teachers who are all (I believe) graduates of drama schools with years of experience; they've also got all kinds of resources that aren't available to amateur performers, and (presumably) rehearse to a greater extent (either spending more time doing it, and/or with a more focused approach courtesy of their experienced directors) than their hobbyist equivalents.

However, the decision was made to include Sweeney Todd in the amateur capacity, a move which caused more than a little confusion – and concern – in the theatre community. I would expect that we're going to have to have another discussion about this before next year's nominations appear.

Whether or not 'amateur' reviewers are should critique professional shows is not something I've thought too much about, but I have to admit that I do sometimes wonder if I'm able to grasp all the nuances of some of the shows I see.

Yes, I've been doing theatre pretty much non-stop over the last nine years, and was a regular theatre-goer for four years before that; I've also studied theatre and related topics (e.g. scriptwriting) at university level, and – without being egotistical about it – I'm fairly bright and reasonably perceptive as well. But, even with that in mind, I'm the first to acknowledge I don't know even close to everything there is to know about theatre. Should that prevent me from critiquing shows, though? While I would argue that it shouldn't, I don't have a problem with my status as an 'amateur' being known by those whose shows I review, or the people who read those reviews.

Then again, given who I write for, that's probably already the case.

But only letting 'professionals' review shows would cause a bit of a problem in Adelaide, since there's only one hard-copy newspaper, and even it doesn't have a person who only writes performing arts reviews; similarly, while there are a few websites around, as far as I'm aware, none of them makes enough money from advertising to pay its writers.

However, I also feel that it's the right of a company to choose not to have their shows reviewed. I don't agree with it, of course, because I think reviews serve a purpose by giving feedback to both theatre-makers and potential audiences. But if they take that option then there's really not a lot we can do about it. I don't think it's going to come to that, though.

One good thing has come of this; the people involved seem keen to have a discussion about the issues. Whether or not it will lead to a satisfactory outcome waits to be seen, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to contribute.

¹Yes, the same one I stage managed; read more about it here.
²Rather a lot when you add it all up, particularly during the festivals.

The week that was #25

2011-11-23T12:46:00.000+10:30

Probably the last truly busy week of the year for me: a theatre info night, a film and two concerts.

South Pacific info night

Because I've been assistant webmonkey¹ for the ATG, I've been seeing all the audition notices for upcoming shows; one that I was particularly interested in was for The Met's production of South Pacific.

All of the shows I've involved in recently – as cast or crew – have tended toward the serious (while Arsenic & Old Lace and The Tempest were both comedies, I played the least funny roles in both of them; Jonathan Brewster and Alonso respectively) and I'm thinking that it's time I did something lighter – either a musical or a (proper) comedy.

South Pacific has the advantage of needing a large cast of guys, and working with The Met has the advantage of rehearsing not all that far from where I live – one of the two locations is literally a five-minute walk from my house; the other a (maybe) ten-minute drive. So it certainly had a lot going for it.

So, I went along to the info night. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for me to realise there were some stumbling blocks, with the most insurmountable being the timing – the show itself is on in May and rehearsals start in early February; this is a huge problem for me, given that I need half of both February and March free for Fringesanity² – and probably a week or so after that to recover. I've also got the 2012 Global Atheist Conference to go to in mid-April, which would probably mean missing at least one rehearsal.

The other major problem is that I'm just not prepared for an audition. It's been a couple of years since I sang, so I'd definitely want at least a couple of refresher sessions with a singing teacher, and I don't even have a standard audition number that I do – in the past I've gotten in without needing one because it wasn't required.

And let's not even talk about my fear of choreography. The only way I got through the last show I did was to absolutely work my ass off in every spare moment at rehearsals to get it right; I suspect I drove a few of the other cast members up the wall with my frequent requests for guidance.

So, no South Pacific for me – at least not this time around; however, it's one of those shows that shows up every few years, so I may get another chance. However, going along has served an important purpose, which is to remind me of exactly what's needed for a musical audition, and that if I am going to try out, I'm going to have to do my homework and be ready well in advance.

¹By which I mean I've been doing a lot of the uploading of audition notices and reviews and so forth.

²My term for the Adelaide festival season, which consists of the Fringe Festival and, in alternate years (though it's becoming annual sometime soon), the Festival of the Arts; there are also other unaffiliated events happening. You can read my posts about it here, here, here and here.

Anonymous

I hadn't actually heard about this film before it came out – which is in itself a bit strange, given the subject matter: it's based on the idea that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by Edward DeVere, Duke of Oxford. But that's only half the story; the other half is about the politics of the last years of Elizabeth I's reign.

There's been some kerfuffle about the idea that someone other than Shakespeare wrote the play – purists are 'up in arms', apparently – but I don't have much of an issue with that, since even if it were the case, it wouldn't change what's truly important: the plays themselves.

One of the oddest things about it was that it was directed by Roland Emmerich, whose previous films include The Day After Tomorrow and 2012²; he's obviously trying his hand at something a little different.

Anyway, it was an entertaining film, if nothing spectacular. They did a lot of work recreating the theatres of the period, and the performance scenes were great – the bit in Henry V where the audience got so filled with patriotic fervour they attacked the actors playing French soldiers in particular. The real Shakespeare was portrayed as an boozy, barely-literate thug, which I couldn't help but find a little funny.

Worth a look if you're a fan of Shakespeare and/or history – though they have taken a few liberties with the facts.

²I haven't seen it, but I've only heard negative things about it – other than how it did at the box office, which was rather ridiculously well.

The Flaming Lips

At first I was annoyed the Harvest festival wasn't coming to Adelaide, but when a few of the bands announced they were doing sideshows, I felt a little less irritated – especially when the first band to do so was The Flaming Lips.

I've seen them before, at the 2004 Big Day Out and since I rate it as one of the best BDO gigs I saw, I was very keen to see them again; at the time I remember lead singer Wayne Coyne saying it wouldn't be long before they'd be back – and even though it's now been seven and a half years, I was still keen to go. And my friend Miriam, who's also a fan, wanted in, so we got tickets pretty much as soon as they went on sale.

To say they have a reputation for wackiness would be an understatement, and they certainly lived up to that: Wayne Coyne coming on stage in a huge inflatable clear plastic ball and then crowd surfing in it; a big video screen with wacky looped clips on it²; dozens of massive balloons and confetti cannons, Wayne donning a giant pair of hands with lasers in the palms, which he reflected off the mirrorball into the audience.

Obviously there were some great songs as well: She Don't Use Jelly, The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (part 1), Do You Realise, and two Pink Floyd covers from Dark Side of the Moon – Brain Damage and Eclipse.

You can see the full setlist here. A crazy fun night indeed.

³Of which a disturbing number featured one or more topless women dancing.

Mercury Rev & Portishead

Two of the other bands doing Harvest sideshows were Mercury Rev and Portishead – neither of which I'd ever seen live before. When it was announced the former would be the support for the latter I got in straight away to get my ticket.

Not long after this was announced, The Flaming Lips announced their gig for the night before – meaning I'd have two gigs to go to in two nights, both at Thebarton Theatre. I asked a few people if they were interested in going, but no-one seemed keen; I then remembered that ex-flatmate Dan was a fan – specifically because he owns the Live in NYC dvd – and he said he'd come.

We got there a little after Mercury Rev started their set but managed to catch most of it, including Holes and Goddess on a Hiway; they also did a great cover of Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill.

Then it was time for Portishead. Here's a picture:

The played all of their big songs: Mysterons, Sour Times, a truly epic version of Wandering Star – a reminder of exactly why Beth Gibbons' voice is considered one of the best in the business – and (of course) Glory Box and Roads (which made Dan happy). They also played some of their more recent stuff, which wasn't as good; it's a lot more electronic with less singing.

Full setlist here.

Very, very glad I went – and it means that, having gone to Massive Attack last year, I've now added both the big two Bristol trip-hop acts off my 'seen live' list.

The week that was #24

2011-11-09T17:24:00.000+10:30

One of those weeks where a few things have happened but none of them, alone, warrants a standalone blog post. I saw a film and a couple of plays, saw a lecture by one of the world's leading public intellectuals, and had one of my tweets get retweeted a surprising number of times.

Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen's latest, it is the story of Gil (Owen Wilson), a Hollywood screenwriter on holiday in Paris with his fiancee Inez (Rachel McAdams); he is hoping to switch from script-doctoring to novel-writing, and finds himself nostalgic for the glory days of Paris in the 1920s, when it was a haven for the world's artists and intellectuals.

Of course, magical realism¹ kicks in and, while wandering the streets at midnight, Gil finds himself transported to the 1920s he longs for, where he encounters F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein, amongst others; Hemingway suggests he give Stein his novel to critique. However, when he leaves her salon to get it, he finds himself back in the present day.

Excited to share the experience with Inez, he tries to take her with him, but he can't find his way back – however, as soon as she leaves him alone, the same old car that transported him to the 1920s rounds the corner and collects him.

After more visits, and more conversations with great historical figures (including Salvador Dali, played by Adrien Brody), he finds himself falling in love with Adriana, a Frenchwoman who begins the story as Pablo Picasso's mistress. Will he stay with her in the 1920s Paris that he adores, or return to the present day and a life he's slowly realising he doesn't enjoy?

While I wouldn't call myself a Woody Allen fan – mostly because I've only seen three of his films²; I don't feel that's enough to make a judgement – but I've liked those I've seen. It's also the most I've enjoyed seeing Owen Wilson in a film since either Zoolander or The Royal Tenenbaums, and he does a great job with Woody Allen's clever dialogue.

It helps to be a bit of a fan of artists from that period, since a lot of the humour stems from how they're portrayed: Hemingway, for example, talks like he writes (sparsely and determined) and always wants to start fights; Dali is hilariously bizarre and obsessed (at this point in time) with rhinoceros.

A couple of things didn't quite sit with me, particularly the overly-long opening scene that moves through Paris; if it were half as long it would have been twice as enjoyable. And Inez's parents are almost over the top in their Ugly American-ness; that could have been toned down a bit without it being any less clear.

But those are minor issues; overall, it's a very enjoyable film. Kind of mild compared to most of what else is on the screen, but still worthwhile.

¹A genre of literary fiction that boils down to 'a little bit fantasy' and includes the works of people like Franz Kafka, Gabriel García Márquez, Louis de Bernières and Thomas Pynchon.
²The other two being Mighty Aphrodite and Sweet and Lowdown.

Broken Pot

I'd been assigned to review Broken Pot, a production by Spotlight Theatre of a locally written work by a Sudanese man. It got a little more complicated when the woman playing the lead dropped out and my good friend Shannon Gray took the part; I tend to avoid reviewing shows my close friends are involved in. But sometimes that's the way it is.

You can find the review here.

Trending on Twitter

While the Qantas shutdown debacle was taking place, wits were active on Twitter. I tweeted a few before coming up with this one:

As you can see, it's been retweeted 91 times since I first posted it. That was apparently enough to get my name to rate as a trending topic in Australia; i.e. it showed up in enough tweets rate on the metrics the system has in place to monitor such things.

I, of course, had no idea of this until I got this tweet:

Hilarious.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago

Accidental Productions were putting this early David Mamet play on at the Bakehouse – I knew because I'd posted the notice on the ATG – and, given Mamet's a playwright I'm interested in and haven't seen much of – and I was hoping to get to see it. So, when my friend Tracey suggested I have dinner with her and her boyfriend Sam, I suggested the play and they agreed.

We had intended to try out Conetopia – apparently they do some sort of cone-shaped version of a pizza – but they unhelpfully weren't open, at any of the two locations we went to. So, we cursed them at length and went to find an alternative; we ended up at Pizza Capers (on The Parade), which turned out well, since they make awesome pizzas.

Anyway, we made our way to the Bakehouse (as usual there were a bunch of people I knew in the audience, include three of the Macbeth cast) and sat down for some sweary mid-seventies American black comedy.

It's about four twenty-somethings, living in Chicago³; without going into too much detail⁴ it's a dialogue-heavy look at the 'dating' scene at the time. While it was funny with great dialogue, it was also kind of discomfiting – the men are a pair of misogynist assholes (though one is far worse than the other) and the women fairly thin characters are mostly there to allow the story to progress.

But I'm glad I saw it; it makes me look forward to seeing the later Mamet plays.

³Yeah, I know that probably comes as a shock given the title.
⁴Because a) it's not that interesting on paper, and b) I'm lazy.

Noam Chomsky

Not a something I ever thought I'd be writing: I attended a lecture by Noam Chomsky in Adelaide on Saturday. He was invited here by the The Australian Friends of Palestine to deliver the seventh annual Edward Saïd⁵ lecture.

Chomsky, if you're unaware, is one of the world's leading public intellectuals: Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy at one of the USA's top colleges, MIT, and an outspoken political activist – and he's extremely critical of US foreign policy, domestic affairs and the media. As we were reminded at the lecture there was a point not long ago where he was the most cited scholarly source in the world.

Read the Wikipedia article here.

The lecture was mostly about the current state of affairs in Palestine, and how this (and many other situations in the world) is overwhelmingly determined by the United States and its policies. While there are issues in the world I personally consider more pressing, many of them are related – governments acting irresponsibly and against both the wishes of the people it supposedly represents; the privileging of religious groups and other special interests; the manipulating of the media for political and financial gain and so forth.

I'm glad I got the opportunity to see such a legend in person. And afterwards I had dinner with my friends Jordan and Ian, and we went to Dumpling King, which I've been meaning to try for months now.

A good night out indeed.

⁵You can read more about him here.

Soundtrack Albums

2011-10-31T18:58:00.002+10:30

Using pop music in films is a great way to establish mood (either on top of or instead of the film's instrumental score) and, for those set in a specific point in time, an easy way to help establish the period. Releasing these for sale to has proven to be a rather handy moneymaking venture, since soundtrack albums sometimes sell very well indeed – The Bodyguard, Dirty Dancing and Saturday Night Fever are in the top ten best-selling albums of all time.

And whether the songs are specifically written for the film or not they often provide very interesting combinations that you wouldn't otherwise find together in one place. I've bought quite a few over the years, and, after some thought, I came up with four albums that I consider my favourites – as well as some notable mentions.

Lost Highway

Trent Reznor's compilation of songs to accompany David Lynch's twisted neo-noir thriller is as eclectic as the film itself, as is illustrated by the combination of artists whose songs are featured: David Bowie, The Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails¹, German hard-metal act Rammstein, Marilyn Manson (an original and a cover, I Put a Spell on You, originally by Screaming Jay Hawkins), Lou Reed, Brazilian bossa nova jazz composer Antonio Carlos Jobim (an exquisite version of Insensatez), frequent Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti and some very interesting tracks from UK band-hopper ² Barry Adamson.

The combination of songs – and the way they're ordered – almost tells a story without the film. It's probably my favourite 'driving' album; it helps that, all up, it's only a few seconds shy of 72 minutes long – pretty damn long by album standards³.

It also reminds me that it's probably time I watched the film again. It's been a while.

¹Unsurprisingly, given that it's Reznor's own band.
²He's played with The Buzzcocks and Nick Cave amongst others.
³Yeah, I'm one of those old-fashioned people who still listen to entire albums.

Juno

Along with the quirky-to-the-point-of-unrealistic dialogue – an aspect of it which I loved, though (for no reason that I can understand) it made a lot of people hate it – Juno had a killer soundtrack. Much of it is the so-called 'anti-folk' (see what Wikipedia has to say on the genre) of Kimya Dawson and her two bands (Antsy Pants and The Moldy Peaches), but there are two songs from Belle & Sebastian that I hadn't heard before: Piazza, New York Catcher and Expectations.

There are also some older songs like Well Respected Man, by The Kinks; Dearest by Buddy Holly; Sonic Youth's cover of The Carpenters' Superstar; the Bowie-penned All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople; and I'm Sticking With You by The Velvet Underground.

It's a great combination.

Garden State

Writer/director Zach Braff also compiled the soundtrack to Garden State – and managed to win a Grammy for it.

The standout tracks – for me at least – are Don't Panic by Coldplay⁴, In the Waiting Line by Zero 7, One of these Things First by Nick Drake, The Only Living Boy in New York by Simon & Garfunkel, Lebanese Blonde by the Thievery Corporation⁵ and Iron & Wine's cover of The Postal Service's Such Great Heights⁶.

Then there's New Slang by The Shins; it's even referenced in the film by Natalie Portman's character, who's listening to it on a headset which she hands to Braff's character, saying 'it'll change your life'. I probably wouldn't quite go that far – but it is a great song.

⁴Yes, I like some Coldplay songs; they weren't always lame. Was never all that fond of Yellow, though.
⁵Which, for all I know, might be the only song they ever recorded.
⁶My familiarity with both versions of the song meant I was freaked out when it got used in Baz Luhrmann's Australia.

Empire Records

Another of my all-time favourite films which happens to have a great set of songs to go with it – hardly shocking, given it's set in a record store.

It features Til I Hear It From You by the Gin Blossoms, Crazy Life by Toad the Wet Sprocket, Circle of Friends by Better Than Ezra, the exceptional Evan Dando cover of Big Star's The Ballad of El Goodo⁷, and a great Australian song, The Honeymoon is Over by The Cruel Sea.

The film itself features a heck of a lot more songs than the album; you can find the complete list at Wikipedia here.

⁷Like so many songs I like a lot it has features excellent drumming. However, even with the internet I've got no idea who's actually playing.

Notable mentions

There are other good soundtracks that just don't quite make the cut in terms of consistency. Good Will Hunting has five Elliott Smith tracks, including Miss Misery, which should have won the Oscar for Best Original Song instead of the vile My Heart Will Go On; that it didn't is possibly the greatest travesty in Academy history⁸.

What the heck; here it is:

Okay, back to the soundtracks. Romeo + Juliet has some good songs, including Radiohead's Talk Show Host – arguably the best b-side of all time – as well as Garbage's #1 Crush and Everclear's Local God. Quentin Tarantino knows how to put them together, since both Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs have some kickass tunes. The Matrix is certainly up there, and – despite the fact the movie it belongs to ranks as one of my least favourites of all time – so is Godzilla.

The X-Files: Fight the Future has some good tracks – though only three of them actually were on the film. My favourite songs from it are Filter's cover of Three Dog Night's One, Flower Man by Tonic; a slightly different version of Foo Fighters' Walking After You from the one on The Color and the Shape; One More Murder by Better Than Ezra⁹; an odd mashup of Tubular Bells and the X-Files theme song by Mike Oldfield (they called it Tubular X); and Teotihuacan – a strangely good instrumental by Oasis's Noel Gallagher.

I'm tempted to put the Daft Punk-composed soundtrack for Tron:Legacy (which I talked about a bit in my post about the film) on here as well, but I still haven't gotten my hands on it, so I can't. Still, it's a good reminder that I should get around to that.

⁸Though only marginally more so than Russell Crowe winning Best Actor for Gladiator – he pretty much just played himself, after all.
⁹Yes, you'd be right if that's the second time they've shown up in this article. Funnily enough, I couldn't actually tell you the name of any non-soundtrack songs they've ever done.

The Pillowman

2011-10-18T20:13:00.002+10:30

It's been, as the saying goes, an amazing ride. I came straight from appearing in Macbeth (which I wrote about here) to stage managing this production – almost literally; rehearsals for The Pillowman started before our run finished, and the afternoon following our final night cast party I was back at the Little Theatre for a rehearsal.

So yeah, five and half straight months of theatre – with the last two and a half being very full-on indeed, since that included eleven performances of Macbeth, thrice-weekly rehearsals of Pillowman, bump-in/production week¹ and then eleven more performances.

But as tired as I am right now, and more than a little concerned about how I'm going to cope with having to go back to a life without regular theatre commitments to make my otherwise mundane life interesting², I wouldn't have done things any differently if I could³.

I've never been involved with a show as well-reviewed as this. Here's a list of those available online if you're interested:

Australian Stage
Adelaide Theatre Guide
Theatre People
Arts Hub
Never Ender Director
In Daily
Barefoot Review

It was also a good show in terms of how much I enjoyed working with the cast – and how much they enjoyed working with each other. I was familiar with all of them except Bart Csorba, who played the lead (Katurian) and Robert Bell (Michal) – I've been seeing Tony Busch (Tupolski) on stage for years (and he's a fellow reviewer for the ATG); Gary George (Ariel) and I went to uni together; Lucy Sutherland (several mothers) was in Macbeth with me; Steve Marvanek (several fathers) has been in a bunch of shows I've seen; and Kate Vanderhorst (assorted characters) was in the Theatre Guild's Influence that I reviewed a couple of years back.

Working with director Megan Dansie is always challenging – but in a good way; she has very high standards and a very clear vision of what what she wants, and it's the job of the cast and crew to realise that.

We had a good offstage team as well: sound and lighting designer Tim Allan, with whom I've worked on shows like Daisy Pulls It Off and Les Liaisons Dangereuses; and costume designer and makeup artist Renee Brice, whose work I'd see on the internet and in shows. She was also at the Olympia Steampunk Spectacular I went to during the Fringe – though we only spoke in character. Megan's husband Tony was responsible for set and gadget building, and Michael Kumnick (who played Banquo in Macbeth) came up with the amazing colour scheme on the set.

Here are some pictures from the show, all by Tim Allan at TAMedia:

We had a great final night cast party; it wasn't too crazy, but it went well into the following morning. I was a lightweight, though, and crashed well before that – though I couldn't tell you exactly what time.

The were a few negatives, though. On the Friday of the second week our show coincided with a gig at the UniBar (which is upstairs in the same building as the theatre), and while I never bothered to find out which bands were playing, their audience consisted of a significant number of asshole guys, who got even more assholish after a few drinks – as demonstrated by the fact they were throwing cups and cans from the balcony at people down on the ground, and then seemed to think running around in groups harassing people around the uni grounds was a good thing to do.

We, of course, disagreed and called security. Unfortunately, they'd not factored drunken idiocy into their rostering arrangements, and whoever it was allocated the duty of answering the phone was new to the job - so much so he didn't know where the UniBar, the Little Theatre or the Cloisters (basically the area outside the theatre) was, and therefore didn't send anyone to actually do anything.

Furious, I wrote an email to the Administration Officer and President of the Theatre Guild to inform them what had happened - and also tweeted about my frustration:

The issue was escalated by the Guild people, but – from what I heard – it was more my tweet that got attention. While that's kind of good in the sense that it led to it being taken seriously, it's mildly annoying that it was the possibility of bad publicity that did it, rather than the concerns of one of the university's established clubs/societies.

Even more importantly, the fuss led to security agreeing to change its policy and to have a security person outside of the theatre before the show starts and when it lets out, just in case. So, big props to campus management and security for doing the right thing and ensuring people's safety.

There was also the problem of the poor audiences. We were never quite sure why we didn't get the houses a show as well-reviewed as ours deserved; the relative obscurity of the play and/or the playwright – despite the fact it won an Olivier award, and Martin McDonagh has an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay for In Bruges – or the fact that, contentwise, it's very dark and confronting. It's also a busy time for Adelaide theatre with a bunch of shows going on.

I'm very disappointed, though, that more members of the Adelaide theatre community didn't make it to the show. It's one thing for the average punter who isn't as likely to have heard of a playwright like McDonagh, or have seen as many of the reviews or talked to as many people about the current state of theatre to realise there was a show attracting as much praise as The Pillowman was.

I know as a reviewer I consider it fairly standard practice to go see a show when it's a highly regarded as this one was; and as an actor I know I'd want to see performances that were getting that much kudos, since it's one of the ways you learn to be better at the craft.

Really, this has annoyed me enough – since we put together an amazing show, and the actors worked their asses off for two and a half hours every night – that I'm going to start looking at whether or not theatre company people and the actors in their shows are getting out and supporting theatre in Adelaide before I decide whether or not I see their next productions.

News just to hand: the show itself, director Megan Dansie and Robert Bell (who played Michal) have all been nominated for Adelaide Critics Circle awards. This is a huge achievement.

¹'Bump-in' and 'bump-out' are the theatre terms for moving your show into and out of the space you're performing in respectively. One day I'll find out where the term originates.
²Relatively speaking.
³In terms of the theatre, that is. Other decisions I made during this period I would most certainly, had I access to a time machine, smack myself around the back of the head for even contemplating.

Pride and Prejudice

2011-10-02T19:25:00.000+10:30

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

I've just finished Pride and Prejudice, and I'm very surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. I'd only read one other of Austen's works prior to this: Emma, which I felt I needed to read after being cast¹ as Frank Churchill in a stage adaptation of that story back in 2003. While I didn't hate it, I didn't think it anything special.

Having seen the superb 1995 BBC miniseries version – with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle – I knew the story; it wasn't as if there were any surprises in store regarding the plot. I certainly enjoyed the series, but I thought that was more a result of the adaptation, which had high production values on top of the stellar cast.

But soon after I started reading I realised that, underlying the story and the characters and social commentary that I'd enjoyed in the adaptation, there was some truly delightful prose – and I'm very, very fond of prose. Especially hilarious, snarky prose – of which there is no shortage. Lizzie's descriptions of her oleaginous cousin Mr Collins² and her conversations with the odious Lady Catherine De Bourgh had me in stitches.

The question now is which of Austen's other novels do I attack next – Sense and Sensibility I know a little about, having seen bits and pieces of the Emma Thompson film version; it therefore seems reasonable to put it at the top of the list.

¹Or, as I like to put it, miscast; I'm no Frank Churchill.
²Who, incidentally, is a reverend – given that Rev. Elton in Emma was a similarly unpleasant character, it appears that Jane Austen had a strong distaste for clergymen.

Fright Night

2011-09-29T13:12:00.001+09:30

This week I saw a film I've keen to see since I'd heard it was getting made: the remake of the classic 1985 comedy/horror, Fright Night. I liked the original, which starred William Ragsdale, Chris Sarandon and the delightful Roddy McDowal. But it was the fact that the Roddy McDowal part (well, sort of) would, in this version, be played by ex-Dr Who David Tennant that really drove me to go see it.

So, it's about a guy (Anton Yelchin) who discovers his neighbour (Colin Farrell) is a vampire, and with his mother (Toni Collette), his girlfriend (Imogen Poots) and an eccentric stage magician/vampire expert (David Tennant channeling Criss Angel), tries to defeat him.

I probably have to rewatch the original to make a proper comparison, but I think this one had a higher horror/action: comedy ratio. But it was still enjoyable – turns out the screenplay was by Marti Noxon, who wrote more than a few early Buffy episodes.

The 3D was, as it tends to be, mostly unneccessary – though there were a few clever uses of it. There were a few issues with the plot; Clusterfer (who saw it with me) pointed out that one scene establishing character would have worked better had it appeared earlier.

I also had some problems with what I referred to in my post about Twilight as 'Vampirisms' – the 'rules' for what powers – and limitations – vampires have. In Fright Night the writers have gone with some of the 'traditional' ideas, specifically the one about not being able to enter a house uninvited, and the one about not showing up in mirrors or on video.

Both of these annoy me, for different reasons: the invitation thing because because of how inconsistently it seems to apply – is it only when someone is home? If so, is it only when someone who lives in the house is home? What about overnight visitors? What about renters? Squatters? I mean, I'm okay with the use of magic in fiction, but it still needs to follow rules.

The mirror/video thing also falls short: fine, while I don't like the idea of the vampire not showing up, I could cope with it – but that doesn't change the fact they're wearing (presumably) human clothes; how is that supposed to work? But these were more irritations than major stumbling blocks – and they're both used consistently and are factor into the plot.

On plot: it is fairly predictable and formulaic – though, given the genre, that's not much of a shock. And it's not really a disappointment either; after all, it's meant to be a comedy/horror, not a think piece.

I did enjoy it, particularly because it meant seeing David Tennant on the big screen again; however, given this film hasn't been a huge success, I don't know if it'll help with his breaking into Hollywood – presuming, of course, that's his goal. As good as he was, though, he was outshone by Colin Farrell in every scene they were both in.

There were some other good performances from Toni Collette, Imogen Poots¹ and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. And there was also a great cameo from one of the cast of the original film – but I won't ruin the surprise.

At this point, though, you're almost certainly going to have to wait for dvd/download; it hasn't done so well at the box office, and seems to be disappearing from the big screen.

¹I have to take this opportunity to point out she has one of the most unfortunate names in showbiz.

Milestones

2011-09-12T19:50:00.003+09:30

A couple of interesting – well, if you're me that is; if you're not, they'll probably seem meaningless – milestones went by over the last few days.

Number one

My blog registered – according, at least, to the attached stats-counter – it's ten thousandth hit. And here's a picture (click on it to enlarge; the important heading is 'Pageviews all time history':

My very first post – Jamie joins the blogosphere¹ – was all the way back in 2008, on Christmas Day, and I've written another 88 posts since then (not including this one), about all sort of things: theatre, television, film being the most popular specific topics, though I got into a habit of writing about assorted topics under the title of 'the week that was'².

Some, I admit, are nothing special. But there are a few I'm really happy I wrote – How My Teenage Years Would've Been Better If I'd Had Access to Alternative Music; ...about Twilight; The Global Atheist Conference; Ella Enchanted, Anne Hathaway and Queen being the ones I'm most fond of.

Oh, and then there's Thinking about Inking. Not one I'm wildly enthusiastic about – if for no other reason than I haven't actually gone through with any of the tattoos I wrote about considering getting done, making it a bit embarrassing – but it is far and away my most popular post, by a huge margin; of the 10,000 hits, it's responsible for nearly 4,000 of them.

Why? Two reasons: the Irish harp and the fleur-de-lis. Apparently, a lot of people are looking for pictures and information about those two things, and I mentioned both in that blog post. But I have serious doubts about whether too many of those who've found their way to my blog via those two items stuck around to read my thoughts on the Adelaide theatre scene.

While I've never been as prolific as I'd have liked – at most I've put up maybe seven posts in the space of a single month – I have enjoyed it. The whole reason behind my starting the blog was to make sure that, since I wasn't doing any real creative writing, I was doing at least some writing, 'keeping my hand in', so to speak.

Hence why the vast majority aren't especially serious or penetrating or insightful – like the film and television reviews. But every now and then something will come along that I consider worthy of more serious analysis.

I've also meant to get back into writing what I've described as super-short fiction – single-paragraph short stories based on a randomly chosen word or concept – that I took up to help keep myself sane³ when I worked in a call centre and had a pen and paper on hand while I asked people inane questions about their radio listening habits. But apart from the three posts' worth I transcribed (here, here and here) I haven't done that either.

Hmm, now I'm starting to feel that this is more about me realising that I there are more things that I haven't achieved with the blog than things I have.

But that doesn't mean I won't at some point. Here's hoping.

¹Yeah, that's a lame title. But I was – as I usually am – in a hurry to get the damn thing finished.
²Okay, let's just say I'm not good with titles. At least most of the time.
³Well, relatively.

Number two

I tweeted my five thousandth tweet this week. I blogged about getting into Twitter (back in January 2009) here, and have been going strong ever since.

Here's what number 5,000 looked like:

And, like blogging, I have no intention of stopping; it's way too much fun. And now there are more people tweeting, the potential for useful information has increased substantially – and it's only going to get bigger.

Sons of Anarchy

2011-09-10T15:33:00.000+09:30

While it's not a new show – it first aired in the US in 2008 – I've become a big fan of the tv series Sons of Anarchy, ever since One started airing it earlier this year. I'm now a couple of episodes into the second season.

It's about an 'outlaw' motorcycle club, the Sons of Anarchy – usually referred to as SAMCRO, which is an acronym¹ for 'Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original'², and their activities, most of which are either quasi-legal or blatantly illegal – gun-running, mostly; there are even more nefarious activities such as extortion and murder-for-hire.

The main characters are Clay Morrow, president of the club; vice-president Jax Teller, whose father John was a co-founder of the club; and Gemma Morrow, Clay's wife and Jax's mother. There are an assortment of supporting character: the other members of the club, Jax's doctor girlfriend Tara, various law enforcement personnel, and a wide range of rival motorcycle gangs and other dubious organisations.

So yeah, these aren't good people. In fact, in terms of the number of characters who aren't genuinely bad people number fewer even than those in Deadwood³, and that's saying something.

But it's damn entertaining, and there's some seriously good actors involved – the always-awesome Ron Perlman⁴ plays Clay, and the immensely multi-talented Katey Sagal is Gemma – if you're even in any doubt about exactly how multi-talented, watch an episode of Futurama in which she voices Leela, and follow that up with an episode of SOA.

What first jumped out at me, though, is that at the heart of it it's basically Hamlet – Jax is Hamlet, Clay is Claudius and Gemma is Gertrude. Considering that – at the point I'm up to at least – it's never been made quite clear Jax's father died, it's not going to surprise me at all that Clay was, like his Shakespearean counterpart, involved. But it's a great dynamic, and one they don't overplay but just let simmer in the background.

The appeal, of course, is – like it was for me with Deadwood, which I wrote about here, and recently watched the last of; and why I also like Dexter⁵ – the idea of anti-heroes (which these people most certainly are) as protagonists. TV Tropes, of course, has an interesting article on the different kinds of anti-heroes in fiction.

Oh, and Ron Perlman smokes a lot of cigars, hence these two tweets:

It certainly makes for some compelling viewing – and, given that Adam Arkin and the awesome Henry Rollins⁶ have joined the cast, it's looking like it's only going to get better. How much of it I'll see on One is probably limited; I suspect that the current season – season two – will be the last on free-to-air for a while.

But season 4 has just begun in the US, so there's more to look forward to at some point in the future.

¹Rather than an initialisation, since the letters are pronounced as a word – as opposed to, say, RAA.
²I can't, despite some research, work out what the 'Redwood' actually refers to, since the club was formed in a (fictional) town called Charming; perhaps there are lots of Redwood trees in the area.
³There's some crossover of cast; Dayton Callie, who played Charlie Utter in Deadwood is Police Chief Wayne Unser.
⁴He who was Hellboy.
⁵Also because we share a certain limited capacity for emotion.
⁶Musician, spoken word artist, broadcaster, publisher and activist.

Cowboys and Aliens

2011-09-03T17:05:00.001+09:30

While I like to think I've developed, over the years, a somewhat sophisticated taste when it comes to film – manifested more in what I'm choosing to not see than in what I'm choosing to see; I refused to see the last Transformers film, for example – but I'm still a sucker for the occasional 'popcorn flick'.

And, based on what I had read/seen about it, the recently-released Cowboys & Aliens fell under that category. Directed by Jon Favreau, whose work I'd admired in the two Iron Man films, and with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in the starring roles, it certainly had some potential.

So, off I went. Spoilers ahoy.

It certainly looks good on paper. It's cowboys and freaking aliens, for crying out loud – that just screams awesome. A director with a couple of solid films behind him, one of the most legendary actors of the last few decades – albeit one with very few well received films in recent years – and the current James Bond. For the (male) fanservice there's one of the current 'it' girls, the luminous Olivia Wilde.

As it opened, the cast just got more impressive: Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown – The Kurgan¹ himself – Keith Carradine (of Dexter and Deadwood fame), Walton Goggins of The Shield, and There Will Be Blood's Paul Dano.

Sadly, though, it seemed to be working on some kind of inverse relationship; as the quality of the cast increased, the quality of the film decreased.

The word that comes to mind is 'thin'. Most The characters weren't explored in in any depth, so their actions often seemed at random, if not completely at odds with how they acted earlier – when formerly unpleasant characters were revealed as being, deep-down, decent people it seemed as a 'huh, what?' moment more than a 'oh, okay' moment.

Olivia Wilde's character is basically a deus ex machina – or, more accurately, deus ex aliena² – and there's no explanation for how she got there or how she was able to do what she did.

The usual excuse made at this point is that it's just a silly action film and that I'm thinking too much about it, but I think that's a crap excuse for not putting in the effort to create characters and situations that balance out the action and provide a more satisfying experience. Thor managed it, and, to a lesser extent, so did Captain America.

Light doesn't have to equal inane.

That, in and of itself, wouldn't be a fatal flaw, but the action scenes – which I was expecting to be of much higher quality, given director Jon Favreau's track record – weren't anywhere near good enough to make up for the lack of engagement provided by the characters, and the otherwise formulaic nature of the plot.

Oh, and the aliens are kind of lame.

So, given my expectations, it was more than a little disappointing. A very good basic concept, with a great cast and the director of two quality films, and it turned out to be average at best.

¹The bad guy in Highlander.
²Apologies for the poor Latin. Mea culpa.

The Scottish Production

2011-08-25T21:38:00.001+09:30

Well, it – the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild production of Macbeth that I first wrote about in my post The Scottish Audition – finished up on Saturday after eleven performances. And it's going to go down as one of the best productions I've ever been involved with.

The combination of such a rare opportunity to do Macbeth¹, combined with getting to work with such a great cast, a talented crew, a thoughtful and inspiring director and in a space as enjoyable to work in as the Little Theatre just doesn't come along that often.

I had a lot of fun, learned a great deal, met some interesting and talented people – including many whose work I'd admired over the past few years – and got a lot of great feedback from people about my performance in the somewhat challenging role of the Thane of Ross, which we did (as I was informed late in the season²) quite differently from how he's mostly portrayed, which was to have him be more sympathetic.

We got some pretty good reviews, too:

Adelaide Theatre Guide

GlamAdelaide

In Daily

Theatre People AU

What I'm afraid of now, though, is that having performed under such great conditions, the next show I do is almost certainly going to fall short by comparison. Not that that's going to be an issue for some time; I've moved straight into stage managing the Theatre Guild's next production, The Pillowman, and will be unlikely to be doing a show in the first quarter of next year since it's more likely I'll want to be free to review shows during the Fringe/Festival.

I think it's a small price to pay for something I'm so happy to have been part of.

¹It doesn't get done very often. This is probably a good thing, since to see it done poorly would be painful.
²I've never seen a full production of Macbeth, only an expurgated one, and I don't remember there being a Ross in that one. I vaguely remember watching one of the film versions at high school, but that was a long time ago.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2)

2011-07-26T18:01:00.000+09:30

This week I saw one of the most anticipated movies of all time: part two of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. And since I wrote a review of the first one – and almost always need an excuse for a blog post – I thought I'd do the same for part two.

The story – oh, and you'd better believe there are spoilers

So, the first film ended with Harry and friends escaping from the clutches of Bellatrix Lestrange and her unpleasant cohorts at Malfoy Manor – but losing¹ Dobby the house elf in the process. Meanwhile, Voldemort raids Dumbeldore's tomb and takes what he finally realised was the Elder Wand – the most powerful wand in the world.

The hunt is still on for the Horcruxes – the vessels in which Voldemort has stored the pieces of his fractured soul – so they can destroy them and kill him. He doesn't actually know this, but still wants to kill Harry anyway, so he has his people hunting for him and his friends.

Eventually they all end up back at Hogwarts – the school of witchcraft and wizardry where all the previous stories were set – and the final battle takes place.

¹By which I mean he died, not that he was misplaced.

Hey, that dimension wasn't there before

As I'd noted in my review, they'd planned to release part one in 3D but couldn't get it done in time to be ready for the release date. This time, however, they'd gotten it together.

I don't think it was a particularly good use of the technology; there were a few scenes where, for want of a better expression, 'shit flew out from the screen'. There was the added visual depth that it brings, but I don't think that was, overall, particularly improved by it.

The good parts

It's a very enjoyable, action-packed film – which makes sense; presumably, one of the reasons they split the final book in two was because the first half was more of a slow-paced road trip as they searched for the Horcruxes, while the second half was faster-paced, culminating in the big battle.

Visually, it's spectacular, with the standout scenes including the journey through Gringott's bank, and the subsequent flight on the dragon they liberated in their escape. The final battle scenes are, understandably, superb – as is the 'afterlife' scene in King's Cross Station.

There's a great scene where Hermione uses Polyjuice Potion to disguise herself as Bellatrix Lestrange, and Helena Bonham Carter does an amazing job of imitating Hermione/Emma Watson's speech patterns and physical mannerisms.

What I really enjoyed was that, after seven films, they finally made use of Alan Rickman. Still not as much as I would have liked, but it was a heck of a lot more than the previous films. The flashback scenes are particularly good – and in the 'present' there's one golden Snape moment where he's speaking to the Hogwarts students and takes the longest possible pauses between words.

I like that they showed Neville Longbottom² finally getting to be a badass – not quite as much as my friend SpideySense liked it (or his sweater); you can read her take on it (and the rest of the film) here.

²Was it ever established that this was a shout-out to Tolkien? I've always felt it was.

The not-so-good parts

As usual, I felt they left too much out. Yes, I'm aware there are time constraints, but a) there are things they included that they could have done without, and b) they were important things, dammit.

They went to the effort of getting so many of the actors from throughout the series but didn't actually use them for much more than background when they could have included them in some of the battle scenes.

One of – to me – the best moments in the book is during the scene in Hogwarts where the students and teachers decided to fight against Voldemort, and the teachers ask the Slytherin students whether they want to fight against Voldemort or be locked in the Slytherin common room; a small number choose to fight. I really liked that scene, and was very annoyed when it didn't show up in the film.

Another great scene in the book was the confrontation between Bellatrix Lestrange and Molly Weasley; in the film this was treated almost like a side-note rather than an opportunity for a great moment. Ditto the deaths of pretty much every minor character that met their end during the final battle.

It included the epilogue, set nineteen years after the death of Voldemort, where Harry and Ginny are married with children but, like the book, avoided having them show much in the way of affection toward each other.

The end of an era

I've read all the books – not from the beginning; I think it was only after Azkaban came out that I started reading them – and have seen all the films at the cinema (and own the first three on dvd³); it's not unreasonable to say I'm a fairly big fan.

So I did experience some sadness as I watched, knowing that it's almost certainly the end of the Harry Potter journey; ten years of watching the world I loved (a lot) in print brought to life on the big screen. But it's been fun – while I had my problems with the films (mostly to do with what they left out), there've been plenty of positives as well.

I've already mentioned SpideySense, but if you're after another great write-up check out Cleolinda's; it's as as clever and insightful as all her stuff is.

³I had intended to get them all, but I kind of stopped buying dvds when I realised I almost never actually watched movies at home; should that change I'll probably get them all on Blu-Ray⁴.
⁴Have I ever mentioned I hate the word Blu-Ray? It was the main reason I wanted HD-DVD to win out, and was more than a little annoyed that it didn't.

Death Cab for Cutie

2011-07-15T23:12:00.002+09:30

A few weeks back I picked up Seattle band Death Cab for Cutie's latest album, Codes and Keys, and that's inspired me to write about the group that, over the past few years, has – with their melodic, atmospheric sound and singer Ben Gibbard's distinctive voice – become one of my favourite bands.

Warning: embarrassing guilty pleasure alert

The first time I really became aware of them was via the television series The O.C., which I wound up watching for no particularly good reason other than people talked about it a lot and I – as I tend to do with such things – wanted to find out why, and got sucked into it.

Anyhoo, my indefensible fondness for dubious teen-centric (and profoundly guilty of what TV Tropes refers to as Dawson Casting) US television notwithstanding, the point is that Death Cab (for short) was the favourite band of one of the characters, and the first episode of the second season featured the then-current single, Soul Meets Body, which I liked enough that I bought the album it came from, Plans – and I was very pleased to find that I liked the rest of the album as well; it has some great songs on it, including I Will Follow You Into the Dark, a song that belongs to a very elite list: those songs I would want, were the (unlikely) event to ever occur, to be played at my wedding¹.

Here's the video:

¹The criteria is that it must be both to some extent romantic, but in what I feel is a genuine, unsentimental way. It's a very short list; I mention the two Darren Hanlon songs on it in this post.

Sometimes it doesn't happen straight away

While I didn't buy the follow-up album, Narrow Stairs, when it first came out, I did buy it – I'd heard and liked the first single, I Will Possess Your Heart² – so it seemed like a good idea.

But when I played it, I didn't like it – so it went into the pile of 'out-of-regular-play' cds in my spare room³.

However, the reason I have an 'out-of-regular-play' pile is that, if I feel like listening to something I haven't heard for a while, I can go to it and dig something out for a listen. About a month or so ago I spotted it in the pile and decided to give it another spin.

This time I found I did like it; there's a captivating darkness and bittersweet melancholy to it, and great songs such as You Can Do Better Than Me, and Bixby Canyon Bridge – and I grew to really like the album version of I Will Posses Your Heart, which has a four-minute instrumental intro⁴ that the single version doesn't, and which (for no reason I can grasp) I didn't like the first time I heard it.

One song in particular, Grapevine Fires, really got inside my head; it's an odd song to like so much: apparently, it's about a 2007 bushfire in suburban California. But it's an amazing, haunting combination of music and lyrics, with a particularly intriguing⁵ drum part – according to Wikipedia it's a variation on a classic pattern called the Purdie Shuffle.

Anyway, here's the video. I only saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and it's awesome – if for no other reason than the on-screen line 'where's my keytar?' at about 1:13⁶.

²This is definitely not a song for the wedding list; it's more about being a creepy stalker.
³As distinct from the 'unlikely to see the light of day again' box of cds, also in my spare room.
⁴They are a bit of a 'jam band' at times; a couple of songs on Plans have fairly lengthy instrumental sections.
⁵Well, if you're a drum aficionado like I am.
⁶Keytars, of course, are inherently awesome.

A slight change of direction

I'd heard the first single, the title track Codes and Keys, once before I got around to buying the album; I thought it okay without it sounding like anything special. But I bought the album anyway, and put it in the car to listen to on the way to work.

While I liked what I heard, there weren't any tracks that leapt out at me straight away. Listening to it a few more times changed that, though; songs like You Are a Tourist, Unobstructed Views and Underneath the Sycamore started to grow on me.

It is, as I've noted, a change in direction – and one confirmed by the band themselves; singer Ben Gibbard says as much in this Spin article. It pretty much boils down to 'less guitar more keyboards', though there's also the fact that Gibbard recently got married, to actress Zooey Deschanel.

So he's a lot happier now than he was before – and it shows. While it's not a bad thing per se (and I certainly don't begrudge someone being made happy, especially when that ~~someone~~ lucky bastard is being made happy by someone as seemingly awesome as Zooey Deschanel), the music of this album doesn't quite resonate with me as much as as the earlier, less cheerful stuff.

But I still like it.

Hoping the gig gods smile upon me

What I'm hoping for now is that the new album means a tour. They've been to Adelaide before, but I've never managed to catch one of their headline gigs; I make the distinction because I have actually seen them play before, way back in maybe 2001 or 2002 (I can't find the details anywhere) as the second support act to Something for Kate. I don't actually remember them at all – I do remember the first support act, Archers of Loaf, who I liked – but did remember the name⁷.

I've signed up to the mailing list, so – presuming they actually post details of upcoming tours, I'll hear about it when it's announced. Fingers crossed it won't be at some obnoxiously inconvenient time of the year, i.e. during the Fringe/Festival, or on the same night as I'm on stage in a show.

⁷Incidentally, it's one of my least-liked band names. But I don't let that hold me back; Radiohead is arguably my favourite band, and I hate their name.

Cabaret Season 2011

2011-06-29T22:02:00.002+09:30

Forgive me, audience; it's been several weeks since my last ~~confession~~ blog post¹.

But I've been busy. Between rehearsals for the production of Macbeth that I'm in (which started in the first weekend of June), seeing shows in the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and Cabaret Fringe festival, and writing reviews – which sometimes takes more time than the show being reviewed – I just haven't had much time to sit down and put fingers to keys – at least not for anything that wasn't a review.

This year, thanks mostly to my having already spent a lot more on theatre already – courtesy of all the Fringe shows I'd seen, and two performances of Wicked – I couldn't really justify going to too many shows; I would, however, happily review as many as I was able to.

¹I have no idea why I'm making Catholic-themed jokes. I do have some Irish-Catholic ancestry, though.

The Variety Gala

Despite it being, as they say, 'for one night only', we got tickets to the opening night show of the festival, the Variety Gala.

Review here.

Hilariously, I hadn't read all the way through the program before the lights went down, so at the end when Olivia Newton-John came on, I didn't expect it, and was actually quite shocked; watching Grease – one of my favourite movies as a kid – I never would have guessed one day I'd actually be seeing her perform live on stage from only a few metres away.

Daniel Boys: So Close

Daniel Boys had performed in the Gala, and I hadn't been that impressed with him – but when it came to his own show, in a much more intimate venue (the Banquet Room at the Festival Centre), it was a very different experience; cabaret, after all, is about making a connection with your audience, and in a space as huge as the Festival Theatre, that's not easy.

What was also interesting – and not in the review – was how many people in the audience were familiar with Daniel and his work; I'd never heard of him before.

Review here.

Simon Burke: Something about Always

Another unknown – to me; prior to getting my hands on the CabFest brochure, I didn't actually know who Simon Burke was. But he has a pretty impressive resume: AFI winner at 13, Marius in the first Australian production of Les Miserables, present on Play School and a stack of other stage appearances; recently he's been in a West End production of The Sound of Music.

He certainly lived up to that; I'd really like to see him in an actual show sometime. Review here.

The Wet Spots

Now this was something different – at point they described themselves as 'Canada's Number 1 bisexual, polyamorous, musical sex comedy duo', and they certainly lived up to that with a succession of hilarious and rude songs.

Great fun. Review here.

Bryan Batt: Batt on a Hot Tin Roof

This was the one show that I actually considered buying tickets for had I not been allocated the review – it wasn't, in fact, one that appeared on our original list of shows so I asked our review co-ordinator to put in for it; he did and I got the gig.

Bryan Batt, if you're not familiar with the name, was in the original cast of – as I described it in the review – 'stylish tv retro-drama', and one of my favourite shows, Mad Men. But he's not a tv actor who's decided to 'try' cabaret for a lark²; he's got more than twenty years experience as a musical theatre performer, including Broadway productions of shows like Cats, La Cage Aux Folles and Grease.

And his show was excellent – review here. A couple of nights after seeing it I bumped into him in the Festival Centre, shook his hand and told him how much I enjoyed the show; I do love that aspect of the festival. It had struck earlier in the week when I'd bumped into current artistic director David Campbell and had a bit of a chat with him about this year's shows.

²I believe that's the first time I've used that expression.

Carla Conlin: A Night of Dangerous Liaisons

I'd inadvertently scored myself a free ticket to this Cabaret Fringe show at the Promethean – the band leader/guitarist is Sam Leske, a friend; he was MD for It's a Dad Thing: The Musical, which I wrote about here and in Matthew Carey's orchestra for the multi-award-winning Metro Street – so I said I'd sort out getting a review in Cabaret Confessional.

Review here – this pretty much covers it; it was a great, fun show with some great elements that a little tweaking would turn into an excellent production.

Guilty Pleasures

Another Cabaret Fringe show put on by some friends – in this case Cara Brown and David Salter – and it was on at the Butterfly House on South Terrace.

It was a much less formal show, with it being mostly the two of them performing those songs that – as the title suggests – 'guilty pleasures'. It also featured guest performers – one of which was Amy Hutchinson, who, with David, is in the upcoming local production of Avenue Q; they did a version – in character, with the puppets – of A Whole New World.

Good times.

Doris: So Much More than the Girl Next Door

My last show of this cabaret season, this show was Australian country music performer Melinda Schneider's tribute to Doris Day. I knew very little about either, apart from the latter having been a star in the 1950s, often paired with Rock Hudson, and having sung Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.

While I enjoyed the performance, I'd become used to seeing shows in smaller spaces – this was in the Dunstan Playhouse, one of the bigger venues – and this show lacked the intimacy of the others I'd seen. Plus, as I noted in the review, it was a show about someone else's life, so there wasn't as much of a connection there either.

Over for another year

And that was the cabaret season done for 2011. I enjoyed the shows I saw, and think I'm getting a better 'feel' (for want of a better term) for cabaret. I still don't like it as much as I like either regular theatre or musical theatre, but my enjoyment of it is definitely increasing.

Kate Ceberano is the artistic director from 2012 on, so it'll be interesting to see what gets lined up next year.

Ben Folds

2011-05-30T19:24:00.000+09:30

On Sunday May 22 I went to see the Ben Folds gig at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre¹. It's the second time I'll have seen him since he went solo; the last time was quite a while back, when he played with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the Festival Centre. Prior to that I saw him twice when he was still with Ben Folds Five.

I was huge Ben Folds Five fan; their first (self-titled) album is one of my favourites, and I rate it as one of the best – maybe even the best – debut album of all time. While I'm not quite as fond of the later albums with the group or his solo stuff – which isn't to say that I think it's bad, per se; it's that the debut album is so damn good, with an amazing energy and some truly kickass songs like Underground, Philosophy, Best Imitation of Myself, Video, Julianne and Uncle Walter, it's hard for anything else to compare – there are good songs on each. So I'd always be up to see him live.

His most recent album, Lonely Avenue was a bit of a departure from his usual style; he'd worked with English author Nick Hornby – author of Fever Pitch, About a Boy and High Fidelity – who'd written lyrics to which Folds put music. The result is different from his normal stuff, though with a few familiar touches – and it's really quite a good album.

So, with all of that in mind, my similarly-minded friend and I didn't hesitate to buy tickets when they went on sale; this was even more important than usual for this show, because it was allocated seating rather than general admission. So we ended up in the third row from the front, off to the right.

It was a thoroughly miserable evening, windy and raining; I wasn't in the best of moods – I'd pulled something in by lower back on Saturday morning, and later that day some miserable piece of shit had stolen the front wheel from my bike while I was enjoying an excellent production of Miss Saigon, which had put me in a bad mood that even by Sunday evening I was not quite over.

We managed to get a park not far from the entertainment centre – it was busier than usual because in the main section was the current Cirque de Soleil production, Saltimbanco. We timed it well, since the rain was light for as long as it took for us to get under cover – and it bucketed down a few minutes later.

The support act was Kate Miller-Heidke, who I was familiar with from the occasional song on the radio, and appearances on tv shows like Spicks and Specks, but who I'd never seen play live before. But she was even more awesome live than I'd expected; I intend to catch her solo show when she's next in Adelaide.

And then it was time for Ben.

¹For those unfamiliar with the AEC Theatre, it's the newer, smaller section – separate from the big main space. It's the third time I've been there; last year it was the venue for Massive Attack and Regina Spektor.

The songs

I'm not going to list them all, but I will talk about those that were significant in some way or another. You can find the complete setlist here at Setlist.fm.

He opened with Levi Johnston's Blues, one of my favourites from Lonely Avenue – it's a song about the guy who knocked up US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol, based on things he'd posted on his Facebook page.

A bit later he played Belinda, another from Lonely Avenue; this one he spoke at length about beforehand, mostly about how difficult it was to write a song about a fictional character, considering that all his other music is about personal experiences, as well as having to include a song within the song that the main song is about.

It makes sense in context.

Not the Same, from Rockin' the Suburbs came along, and he explained that there was a particular significance to performing the song in Adelaide, because it was while he was living here that he recorded it, at Krell Studios –situated literally only a few hundred metres from where we were. And because of that, he wanted to record this performance for an upcoming live album.

Which is all kinds of awesome, because it's a song that he, wherever he is, always gets the crowd to participate in; singing the bit that goes 'ah-aah', with the audience split to sing the three different parts. So, I – and about two thousand others – might end up on a Ben Folds album.

He played Adelaide, which is a song I like the idea of – unsurprisingly, given it's where I choose to live – despite the fact I don't really like the song itself.

Kate Miller-Heidke came back on to help out with From Above and You Don't Know Me, and then the rest of the band left so Ben could play some solo songs, including Lullabye (one of the few songs from the last Ben Folds Five album, The Untitled Biography of Rheinhold Messner that I actually like), Brick (which I didn't think he did anymore, and which I could have lived without – but the crowd seemed happy to hear it), and Luckiest, which he explained had originally been written for a scene from the film Loser, but which wound up on the cutting room floor.

The band came back on and they played the song I was most hoping to hear – Landed, from Songs for Silverman, followed by Zak and Sara, Kate and another with crowd participation, Army.

After the encore they came back and played around with percussion for a while, and then got into the fairly traditional ending for his live shows, an extended version of Philosophy that includes the riff from Misirlou and then goes straight into Theme from Dr. Pyser.

And that was that. It was a great gig; while he's matured significantly as a songwriter, he's still a great, energetic performer who clearly loves being in front of an audience.

A Wicked good time

2011-05-17T18:59:00.002+09:30

From the moment during last year's Cabaret Festival when the crowd of people emerging from co-creator Stephen Schwartz's show, buzzing with excitement because he'd let slip that the hugely popular show would be coming to Adelaide in 2011, I've been looking forward to seeing Wicked.

Obviously I could have travelled to Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane to see it while it played in those cities, but I'm generally of the opinion that if the producers of a show aren't willing to bring it to Adelaide, then they don't deserve my money.

Anyway, the dates were eventually released and as soon as tickets were available, I got one¹, winding up in what they called the 'Emerald Section', in D row, which – given there are two rows before A (AA and BB) – means the sixth rows from the stage.

¹Actually, I got four – I'd arranged with three friends who also wanted to go – but you get the picture.

Some background

Wicked – occasionally subtitled 'The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz' – is, as that additional information suggests, is about the witch characters of Oz, i.e. the fantasy world created by author L Frank Baum and most well known from the film adaptation The Wizard of Oz.

It's based on a novel (also called Wicked, but with the slightly different subtitle of 'The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West') by Gregory Maguire; I read this a few years back but wasn't particularly impressed by it. I'm not really sure why; it's certainly not the concept – a very dark retelling of the original story from the perspective of the Wicked Witch – which is usually the sort of thing that appeals to me.

The musical is very different from the book, though; while it takes the idea (retelling the story of that particular episode² of Oz history) and many of the characters (though some really only have the same name), it's much lighter in tone, condenses the action into a much briefer time period (the book is set over something like thirty years), has far less (though is not completely bereft of) political and social commentary – it's overwhelming focus is the relationship between the girl who would become the Wicked Witch and her 'good' counterpart.

²I say episode because the series of Oz books stretches into the dozens; the story of Dorothy and Toto being brought from Kansas in a house via tornado is but one of them.

The story (minor spoiler alert)

After the death of the Wicked Witch, Glinda, the Good Witch of the North³ appears and speaks to the citizens of Oz; we are then taken, via flashback, to where the two witches – then known as Elphaba and Galinda – met and became roommates at Shiz university. They didn't, however start off as friends; how that changed is the crux of the story. Throw in a boy (Fiyero), Elphaba's wheelchair-bound sister Nessarose, another boy (Boq), a talking goat who's also a teacher (Dr Dillamond), the manipulative headmistress Madame Morrible, a growing political problem and the Wizard who – like in the orginal – isn't quite the man people think he is, and you've got a framework for what takes place.

³In the original novels she was from the South; why this was changed I've no idea.

A thorough listening

I've been listening to the Broadway cast recording for the last few months; I'd decided that I'd enjoy the show more if I knew the songs a little better. I'd heard a couple before – Defying Gravity showed up in an episode of the tv series Glee, for example – but I felt I needed to hear the rest.

One of the interesting things was how different some of the songs were in the show, some because they were broken up with dialogue – Wicked isn't a sung-through musical like Les Miserables; a lot of it is spoken, and that's generally minimised in a soundtrack album. I knew this was the case because I was familiar enough with the story to know that the songs didn't cover everything.

What I didn't think about was how they might be different because of character; in a way, the songs on the soundtrack album are sung independent of the context of the show they're from; as a result, they're slightly different – but in a way that, although it surprised me at the time, makes sense now I think about it.

In short, the songs were a little different – but, for the most part, in a good and logical way.

Visually spectacular

The sight of the set – even with the curtain closed – sent chills down my spine. What I could see was dark wood and metal, and what looked to be vines and creepers growing through a series of huge cogs and wheels underneath some balconies and scaffolding.

As I noted in my Facebook status update at interval:

And the visuals only got better from there – and better and better and better. Nearly every scene (and there were plenty) had a different backdrop and/or flown set pieces. The costumes were also amazing, and – given that there were as many different scenes as there were – there were lots of them.

The lighting, too, was at least several steps above any other show I've ever seen. Just stunning.

Laughs aplenty

I knew from the soundtrack that there would be comic elements throughout; however, I was not prepared for exactly how much – or just how funny I'd find it. There are jokes the whole way through and I laughed pretty much constantly throughout. Glinda gets the majority of the good lines, and her character – in the sense that she's ditzy, outspoken and often exasperated – provides for even more hilarity.

That's not to say Elphaba is denied the opportunity for laughs; she gets some, but in a different way because her character is much quieter, has a drier sense of humour and tends toward deadpan.

And the other character get their chances: a big part of Madame Morrible's shtick is her bizarre malapropisms; Boq, a Munchkin, gets short jokes; Fiyero plays up his lazy rich kid persona; even the Wizard gets a few good lines.

Great performances

Unsurprisingly, given this is a professional production of a very popular and recent show⁴, the standard of performance is very high, and the singing, acting and dancing is some of the best I've seen. Jemma Rix is considered to be one of the all-time best Elphabas, Lucy Durack has – as I've noted – excellent comic timing, as well as a lovely voice, and Maggie Kirkpatrick (star of the legendary Australian tv show Prisoner) is brilliant as Madame Morrible.

And then there's Bert Newton. Yes, he's also a legend of Australian television, but he's really not a musical theatre performer, and as a result was the low point of the show. He did okay, but he just wasn't up to the high standards of those around him.

The orchestra – including ubiquitous local composer/accompanist Matthew Carey, who I've bumped into a few times before – were also excellent.

⁴With something this recent, protecting the 'brand' is very important, so the people who own the rights are far more likely to be involved in casting; this may be the case, particularly in older shows.

A wonderful⁵ package

Putting it all together, you have the best big-budget musical I've ever seen, and what is likely to remain one of my all-time favourite shows – I enjoyed it so much I'm going again in the final week of the season.

⁵Yes, that's a pun.

Needs More Banjo

2011-04-26T18:25:00.000+09:30

As I was driving home from a friend's place the other night, my mp3 player – in shuffle mode – gave me two consecutive songs featuring banjo: Electrolite by REM, and White Blank Page by Mumford & Sons, and it reminded me of just how much I enjoy the use of that particular instrument.

I'm not sure where I first heard a song with banjo, but there would have been a few songs floating around while I was young.

Given I remember it being on television, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the theme song to The Beverly Hillbillies by the bluegrass duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs; if you've somehow never heard/seen it, here it is:

Another contender would of course be the famous Dueling Banjos from the film Deliverance – even though I've never seen the film (and certainly didn't when I was young; something for which I'm profoundly glad in hindsight), I can only assume I heard it because it got used in other films, television or got played on radio. Here it is:

Third on the list would be Journey of the Sorcerer by the Eagles, which was the theme song for the television version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy¹. It wasn't until many years later that I learned that it was an Eagles song, and I was quite surprised because a) it's far closer to progressive rock than the west-coast country rock sound, and b) it never occurred to me that a 80s British sci-fi show would feature the music of such a band.

Here's a the version used in the recent film adaptation:

Finally there's The Rainbow Connection from The Muppet Movie. I was a huge Muppets fan as a kid – watching it on a Sunday evening was as much of a ritual as watching Dr Who on weeknights.

Here it is:

Since then there've been a few songs here and there that I've noticed with that delightful plunking² sound in there somewhere – and the occasional song where it's the primary instrument, like on of my all-time favourites, Falling Aeroplanes, by Darren Hanlon. US Folk/pop/progressive artist Sufjan Stephens featured banjo on many of the songs on Illinois; UK act Travis used one in Sing, the first single from their album The Invisible Band; and the aforementioned Mumford & Sons (unsurprisingly, given they're a folk-rock band) include banjo on every song on their acclaimed debut album Sigh No More.

So yeah, I notice songs with banjo in them, though I'm sure I've missed a few.

Yes, that's a picture of me with a banjo. I'm not playing it because a) it was out of tune, and b) I've no idea how, beyond picking out what I think are notes; it was a prop in the Burnside Players production of By Jeeves³, for which I was the production manager. I just couldn't help but pick it up and annoy the cast and crew with it at any point where I wasn't otherwise doing something.

Anyway, given my fondness for the instrument, I'm rather hoping it's going to keep being used in popular music as well as in folk and country and bluegrass and everywhere else it shows up.

¹It was also used in the radio series, but I didn't hear that until many years later.
²For want of a better word.
³It's a great show, a little-known Andrew Lloyd Webber and Alan Ayckbourne collaboration based on the Jeeves and Wooster stories by PG Wodehouse. Ours was actually the Australian premiere.

Frankenstein & Sucker Punch

2011-04-19T18:22:00.000+09:30

I visited the Palace cinema twice in two days (Sunday and Monday) for two somewhat different kinds of entertainment, despite them being broadcast in essentially the same medium.

Frankenstein

Not a film – a filmed version of a play; England's National Theatre have done a series of these over the last few years – I saw their Hamlet (which was brilliant) a few months back – and they seem to be successful enough to be continuing with them.

This particular production was a stage adaptation directed by Danny Boyle (director of one of my all-time favourite films, Trainspotting, and winner of the Best Director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire) and starring Johnny Lee Miller (also from Trainspotting) and Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock Holmes in the brilliant BBC tv series, Sherlock. One of the more unusual aspects of the production was that Cumberbatch and Miller would alternate the roles of Frankenstein¹ and the creature on different nights.

I'd seen it advertised, but I hadn't decided for sure that I was going to see it, but one of my friends mentioned it was on and that she was interested in going to see it; I spoke to a few other people and we got a group together to go. We'd heard that the version with Miller as the scientist and Cumberbatch as the creature was the better of the two, so we decided to see that one.

And it was awesome. It was done at the The National in London, which is an absolutely stunning space with a multi-part revolving section with elevators, which allows for very fast scene changes. They'd created a kind of chandelier out of hundreds of light bulbs, which were used throughout to create some of the most impressive dramatic lighting I've ever seen; they were also able to create amazing fire, fog, rain and snow effects.

The performances were also exceptional. I liked Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock, but here he demonstrates just how talented a physical performer he is. Likewise, I've never seen Johnny Lee Miller do much beyond Trainspotting and the few scenes from Eli Stone that I caught.

Overall, it was a intense and captivating production, and definitely worth seeing. I would have liked to get to a session of reversed-role version, but time and budgetary constraints demanded otherwise. Obviously it's not as good as seeing it live, but it's better than not seeing it at all.

¹Despite what popular culture might have told you, Frankenstein was always – in the original at least – the name of the creator, not the created; the latter's official name is 'the creature'.

Sucker Punch

Despite the seeming tidal wave of negative reviews this film had received, I was determined to go see it anyway, simply because I like what the director, Zack Snyder, has done in the past – namely 300 and Watchmen.

It is the story of Babydoll (Emily Browning²), whose stepfather commits her to an insane asylum and bribes one of the orderlies to forge the doctor's signature to have her lobotomised in five days. However, in Babydoll's broken-from-reality mind she is not in an asylum, but instead a brothel, where she and a troupe of girls perform dance numbers to entertain patrons.

It gets even stranger after that point, as Babydoll, when dancing, goes to yet another fantasy world where she is a sword-and-gun wielding superhero. After her first journey into this world she is given a quest to obtain four items which, when obtained, will give her her freedom. Then, when back in the brothel-world, she recruits the assistance of four of the other girls to aid her in the tasks, which she has five days to complete.

Apologies if that doesn't make a lot of sense, but that – more or less – is the plot.

So, we follow Babydoll and her stripperiffic³ offsiders through a set of adventures more reminiscent of levels of a videogame than a film – they battle steam-powered, Pickelhaube-adorned German soldiers in WWI trenches; dragons and orc-like warriors; and futuristic robots on a distant planet before it all ends.

And – if it's not already clear – it doesn't really work. While the central concept – escaping into a fantasy world to cope with an unpleasant situation – is not an unreasonable (albeit not a wildly original) one, in this instance it's not given enough from the other aspects of the story to make it satisfying.

When the first 'shift' in reality occurs – from the asylum to the brothel – it just happens, without any kind of attempt at an explanation; was it from the sedatives, or the stress or something else entirely? Ditto with the shift into (for want of a better term) the game world, which just kind of happens.

If we'd been shown she was an avid reader of sci-fi and fantasy – not hard to do; a brief scene with a bookcase in the background would have done it – it would have helped. Had the shifts in reality been something Babydoll had to understand and take control of, a gradual process rather than a sudden jump, it would have been much more acceptable.

Without these kind of anchoring concepts, it felt (to me at least) like there were parts missing, and that's something that I find difficult to overcome my annoyance toward. When you add to that the distinct lack of depth to most of the characters (two of the other girls get somewhat of a backstory, but no-one else does), and the more contentious issues, which are discussed far more intelligently than I could manage in this blog post, you get some serious distractions.

It didn't, however, undermine the experience completely. Snyder is a brilliant director of visual effects, and there are some brilliantly conceived – and even more brilliantly realised – action scenes; there are a few zoom-in/zoom-out transitions between the worlds that are so well done they're seamless.

Basically, it's a superficially interesting film without much depth – which I would mostly attribute to the fact that Snyder co-wrote this one himself when, prior to this, had mostly worked at adapting existing stories. And it looks like while he's a talented director he's either not much of a writer or, at the very least, is one who needs to spend more time on his scripts or get some help.

Incidentally, his next film is yet another reboot of the Superman franchise, Man of Steel; since I've never been much of a fan of that particular character, I'm going to wait and see what the reviews say (fingers crossed it's 'no tights', since that's what I really dislike) before I decide.

²It was a bit disturbing to see her in this kind of role, given that I still think of her as Violet Baudelaire from the film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events.
³Yeah, that's another TV Tropes term. It's pretty self-explanatory, but you can always check out the entry here.

The Scottish Audition

2011-04-12T17:55:00.001+09:30

I, like most actors, have a theatrical wishlist¹. On that list are modern plays shows like Noises Off, Arcadia and A Few Good Men; and there are, of course, more than a few Shakespeares. I've already done four – A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing and (most recently) The Tempest. But that still leaves a few², and amongst those at the top of the list is Macbeth.

What I've also wanted to do for quite a few years is work with the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild (henceforth known as 'the guild' for short), whose shows I've been seeing for almost as long as I've been living here, including Twelfth Night, The Underpants, A Streetcar Named Desire, Antony & Cleopatra, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Influence, Richard II, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Real Inspector Hound.

I'd actually auditioned – unsuccessfully – for the last two on that list; I've not had that much experience with not getting cast when I audition, so getting into a show with this company became a significant goal for me.

So in late 2010 when I heard a rumour that the guild were to be doing Macbeth, I got very excited.

¹Actually, I don't know for sure that this is true; it's just something I assume. But I'd be surprised to find it wasn't true.
²34 more to be precise; the number of those that you're likely to see performed, though, is probably half that.

A long(ish) wait

Sometimes finding things out well in advance isn't necessarily a good thing; since it was a couple of months between when I first heard and when the details of the auditions were released. In that time, though, I had some back-and-forth with the director, Michael Eustice.

Eventually, though, the date was announced and they were taking bookings. They also listed what they wanted from auditionees: not just the usual monologue (specifically, one from a Shakespeare tragedy) but also, and somewhat surprisingly, a 'shaggy dog story' style of joke – surprisingly because Macbeth is, of course, a tragedy. In fact, I suspect that it might be one of the least comic of the Shakespeares³, at least compared to, say, Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet or King Lear, which all have numerous comic moments.

Finding the right pieces

I took some time choosing a monologue; it's the sort of thing you want to do well, and it helps if it's a piece you feel some kind of connection with; my thoughts leaped immediately to Othello, since a) it's a tragedy, b) I knew I had a copy lying somewhere around the house, and c) it's the one with Iago, who's one of my favourite Shakespearean villains, and one I've always wanted to play, even if it's only for an audition.

I found a monologue, but wasn't sure; it seemed like it might be a bit short. So I found a website where all the Shakespeare monologues are listed and categorised into male and female and the three different genres (comedy, tragedy and history). But I couldn't find anything I liked any better than the one from Othello, so that's the one I went with.

Just for interest's sake, here it is:

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:

For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,

If I would time expend with such a snipe.

But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:

And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets

He has done my office: I know not if't be true;

But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,

Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;

The better shall my purpose work on him.

Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:

To get his place and to plume up my will

In double knavery—How, how? Let's see:—

After some time, to abuse Othello's ear

That he is too familiar with his wife.

He hath a person and a smooth dispose

To be suspected, framed to make women false.

The Moor is of a free and open nature,

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,

And will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are.

I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

For a joke I turned once again to the internet, and after reading dozens of truly, truly awful 'shaggy dog stories', I found one that I didn't mind too much, and which I thought had a good structure and was based around a less odious (or obscure) pun than the others.

That one I'll spare you from.

³Given I've actually avoided reading the play in any great detail leading up to the audition, this is a perception rather than an informed opinion; I'm happy to be convinced otherwise.

The big day

I'd been allocated 4.30 on Saturday afternoon; since it was a nice day I decided I'd ride my bike into the city – the auditions were at the guild's regular venue, the Little Theatre, which is part of the city campus of the University of Adelaide. As usual, I got there early; however, this turned out to be a good thing, 'cause they'd had a few people not show up and I didn't have to wait around.

The joke was first, and it went pretty well. I've always been a good public speaker, and storytelling (oddly enough) comes fairly naturally as well. The panel – the director, assistant director and the two actors playing Macbeth and Lady Macbeth – actually laughed, and said it was the funniest one they'd heard all day.

Monologue time, and this didn't come quite as naturally, but the idea of this kind of audition is that the director gets you to try the piece in a number of different ways, to demonstrate that a) you're able to take direction⁴, and b) that you're capable of doing it whichever way it is they want you to do it.

So that's what we did; mostly they got me to go a lot slower, and then we did it as if it was to an actual person in room with Iago, rather than the soliloquy it's written as. Again, they seemed pleased with the result, and that I was able to understand what it is he (the director) was wanting me to do differently⁵.

And that was that.

⁴Not being able to take direction is one thing; not being willing to is another – I've seen people completely blow an audition by insisting there's no other way they can do that character. Arguing with the director is an acceptable practice – but only once you've been cast.
⁵This phrase – found mostly in workplace HR material as the 'nice' way of telling you you're doing something wrong – usually brings me out in hives, but on this occasion it's an accurate description of what took place.

The waiting game sucks – let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!⁶

I was told I'd find out by the end of the week, so I didn't really start thinking about it until I got an email from a friend who'd been told (also via email) that they didn't get in.

Which of course started my brain off on its usual habit of attempting to calculate the likelihood that I'd get in. On the 'pro' side there was the fact that I felt I'd done okay in the audition, and that I've had plenty of experience doing Shakespeare⁷; on the 'con' side was the fact that, being the guild, there'd no doubt be a whole bunch of very talented people to compete with.

One person I'd acted with, Geoff Dawes (he played Antonio in The Tempest), was auditioning as well. Two others I knew who were trying out were (oddly enough) both people I knew from university as well as theatre, Andrew Dowling and Gary George. Andrew's done a few shows (mostly comedies) over the last few years, and Gary is an ex-professional actor with a lot of experience – and, apart from anything else, was nominated for his performance as Enobarbus in the guild's 2008 production of Antony & Cleopatra.

So, it was less about whether I was good enough to play the part – without being egotistical about it, I knew that I could play nearly any part and play it well – and more about if there were enough people better than me who'd tried out.

⁶That's a reference to The Simpsons, by the way; specifically, the Mr Plow episode.
⁷Or, as I like to call it, 'Shakesperience'...

The call

My phone started ringing about three o'clock on Friday afternoon; I don't get that many calls, so I was pretty sure it was going to be Melanie from the guild to tell me whether I was in or out.

Turns out I was in.

They offered me the role of Ross, one of the noblemen; in my research I'd come across the name but hadn't studied the script to the extent of knowing how big a role it was. But I knew it was a speaking part and, since that's the only real criteria I set, I said yes.

It was only after I'd gotten home from work that I got online and found a website that showed the amount of dialogue (by line count) each character in a Shakespeare play has that I realised that Ross is (in that regard) the fifth biggest part in the play, below only Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Macduff and Banquo.

Wow.

Downloading a copy gave me an even better idea of what I'd be doing – though, since I downloaded a version from Project Gutenberg that turned out to be quite elderly, I got slightly distracted by the spelling used ('murtherers' as opposed to 'murderers' being one that stood out) – and it's actually quite a lot; for the most part, Ross is one of those expositional characters who shows up and explains the significant events that aren't able to be shown on stage. But he also has some more dramatic moments, including one with his cousin, Lady Macduff.

So I've got quite a bit of line-learning to do and, given there are some intense emotional scenes, some acting to do as well.

Another round of the waiting game

Rehearsals don't start until June 4, so I've got a while before things kick off. Which is a bit of a bummer, given that I'm a somewhat impatient person, and I have quite a few questions – not the least of which is the all-important question of who else is in the cast; since one of the main reasons I do theatre is for the social aspects, it's a big part of the experience.

Turns out that Andrew Dowling, who I mentioned upthread, got in as well; he's playing several of the other characters. So that's a good thing because a) he's someone I know, and b) I won't be facing the possibility of being the only guild-noob there⁸.

All else aside, I'm very excited. Getting into Tempest was a happy accident; this, by virtue of being something I've been planning for since first hearing about the opportunity sometime late last year, is a much bigger thrill for me.

I'd like to be able to promise I'll provide regular updates, but I know what I'm like. But you never know...

⁸This is more important than you might think. It can sometimes be very daunting to be around a group of people a company like the guild tends to attract, i.e. talented and experienced; I actually get a bit nervous.

Adelaide Fringe 2011 - Fringesanity Part 2

2011-03-27T18:51:00.001+10:30

In an effort to actually get this blasted thing finished, I've not been as thorough as I probably should have, and for that I apologise.

Goering's Defence

I'd seen Ross Gurney-Randall's one-man show Goering's Defence back in 2008 when it was on in the Balfour's Bakery and enjoyed it; therefore, I was quite happy to be assigned the review.

It was almost as good the second time around, with the major difference being that this version's being in the Royalty Theatre – a much bigger space – meant that the intimacy the smaller space the room in the bakery provided was lost. But Gurney-Randall is an excellent performer, and the script – based on transcripts from Goering's trial – is very good.

Review here.

S.O.V

One of my co-workers is in this group, which falls loosely under the banner of Ukrainian folk/world music. They've played a few shows over the years, but I'd never managed to get to one until now.

At the centre of traditional Ukrainian music is the bandura, which kind of looks like a lute crossed with a harp, and S.O.V (in this formation) has two bandura players (one also plays the didgeridoo), along with electric and acoustic guitar, bass, violin and percussion – so they're able to get some really interesting sounds.

Definitely worth checking out if you get the chance.

Aussie Bob's Rolling Downunder Revue: The Bob Dylan Tribute Show

Another show a friend was in – this time playing violin – I headed down to the Rob Roy Hotel to check out Aussie Bob and his band.

What was vaguely surprising was the choice of songs; most of them I hadn't heard (or even heard of); fortunately, I got hold of a partial set list:

One More Cup of coffee
Sara
I Want You
Blowin' in the Wind
Slow Train
Ballad of a Thin Man
Hurricane
Maggie's Farm
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Hard Rain
Idiot Wind
Like a Rolling Stone

Despite my unfamiliarity with the songs, I was impressed by the band, who were excellent. They're likely to be playing more gigs throughout the year, so you're a Dylan fan, keep an eye out.

Scenes from a Separation

Not part of the Fringe per se, I mostly went to see this because my friend Megan Dansie directed it. It's a very interesting and unusual play in that it was co-written by two playwrights, who took (roughly) half – i.e. one act – each of (as the title suggests) the demise of a relationship.

A good Australian script (much respect to Megan and Stirling for that) and some great performances made it a worthwhile trip up to the hills for a non-Fringe show.

Shylock

This was one I was very much looking forward; part of Guy Masterson's CIT lineup, and starring the great man himself, it was an investigation of not only Shakespeare's character, but a history of the Jewish people in Europe.

It's a fantastic script, and Masterson is an excellent performer; the scenes for The Merchant of Venice in particular were breathtaking. Unfortunately, it was the final show of the run and he was both hoarse and tired, and this undermined things a little.

Still, very much worth seeing.

Bred to Perfection

After a night off – well, a night off from Fringe; I went to an audition – I was back into it with Bred to Perfection, one of the several shows on offer from Accidental Productions.

Sadly, it wasn't that great. Review here.

Sound & Fury's Spaceship Man

One of the my favourites shows from last year's Fringe was Sound & Fury's Private Dick, so these guys were pretty high up on the list of things I wanted to see.

Only one of the previous members – Richard, who (apparently) does most of the writing – remained from last year's troupe; previous member Shelby now has his own outfit, The Max & Dagger Show, which I wrote about here.

This show wasn't as good as Private Dick, but it was still entertaining; they managed to pack in a joke about nearly every science fiction work there is, as well as a significant homage to Apocalypse Now.

Deanne Smith: About Freakin' Time

Easily one of the best standup comedians I've seen. Review here.

Eurodiva

This was an odd show. As the review indicates, the performer has a cruise ship background, and it shows. What was also unusual – for a Fringe show at least – was the audience, which was a much older and more conservative-looking crowd. It turned out that quite a few were family.

Seeing a show at the Santos Conservation Centre meant yet another new venue to add to the very long list of places I've seen shows in over the years I've been going to the Fringe.

CIT Voice Workshop

Something I'd been very excited by when I saw it in the Fringe guide: the chance for a learning experience with actors from the Guy Masterson's CIT, whose wide range of shows were almost all on my to-see list.

It turned out to be run by Paul Slack, star of Phoenix Rising – which I reviewed on the first weekend of the Fringe proper – who's an excellent actor and, according to his bio, an experienced drama teacher.

We spent the first half doing vocal exercises and the other in groups working on the opening speech from Romeo and Juliet – the idea being that the iambic pentameter Shakespeare used is a great measure of the vocal technique, since each line is meant to be said in one breath.

Some of it I knew before, but other aspects of it I'll be taking on board for performances in the future. And talking to Paul about his show was great.

Nice Work If You Can Get It

Physical theatre isn't usually my thing, but I'd been allocated this show to review so I headed off to Arcade Lane to see it.

So, I was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining it was. Review here. Oh, and I met the guys at the Fringe Club the following night and chatted to them for a while about the show.

Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under

While I was still mildly annoyed that we weren't getting a proper full-length gig – it appears that if I want that I'm going to have to go interstate – I wasn't going to miss the chance to see her.

Even though it only lasted an hour, it was a great gig. Last year she played a whole bunch of new songs; this time she played more stuff from Who Killed Amanda Palmer, which I'd never actually heard done live before.

At the end she announced she was doing a ninja gig (a previously unannounced show) at the Tuxedo Cat with The Jane Austen Argument, but I was way too tired to go to that (it wouldn't start until something like 12.30am) so I headed home.

Over My Dead Body

A review at yet another new venue, I was more than a little surprised when flipping through the program that two of my friends were in the show, given I hadn't seen any references to it on Facebook or in conversation.

That aside, it was an interesting concept – three elderly murder-mystery writers planning an elaborate murder of a suspected criminal. The roles were all played by people in their twenties and, while they all did well, it just wasn't quite the same as if it'd had appropriately aged actors.

Review here.

The Spaces Between

One of the shows I was most looking forward to, since I'd not gotten to see them last year other than in their appearance at the Amanda Palmer gig.

They were once again in Arcade Lane, specifically the old Regency cinema building, and using the space an interesting way, specifically putting the audience down on the floor and performing on the stepped area where the audience would usually be. This had caused them problems with their sound (my friend Miriam had seen them a couple of nights earlier; read her review here) so I was hoping they'd have worked on that.

And they had, though it still wasn't perfect. However, the show was still amazing; they – Jen and Tom – are a stunningly good outfit who make some of the best music I've heard. I ended up chatting to them afterwards, and buying a copy of their EP, The Birthing Pyre – which includes Bad Wine & Lemon Cake, a brilliant song which Amanda Palmer covered on her Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under album.

Dead Men Don't

It was kind of lucky I made it to this show; for some unknown reason (well, other than my own dimwititude) I thought it was at Najjar's on O'Connell Street when it was actually at the community centre on Tynte Street. Having lived in that part of North Adelaide for a year or so I knew where to go and bolted, getting there just in time.

A live-action radio play (hilariously, fellow reviewer Rod Lewis from Glamadelaide was there as well; he and I had worked together on a live-action radio play a few Fringes go) put on by a touring group from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, it was a clever, funny show which I really enjoyed.

Review here.

Mussolini: A One-Man Political Farce

This was the second show by Ross Gurney-Randall – the first being Goering's Defence, which I'd seen a few days prior – and even more bitingly satirical. Brilliant stuff.

Smiler

Another show I was looking forward to, both because I enjoyed Richard Fry's show Bully, which I saw in the 2010 Fringe and also because I'd been hearing good things about it from everyone who'd seen it.

I was not disappointed; it was a well-written, well-performed and genuinely touching show.

What was also good was chatting to Richard, both before and afterwards; we'd become friends on Twitter after the 2010 Fringe and had a few conversations since then. And he's a really nice, friendly guy who's happy to 'talk shop', which is one of the things I love to do – and something which I really enjoy about the Fringe.

One Man Lord of the Rings

Interestingly enough, this was one of the most expensive shows I was seeing this season, and the most expensive through the actual Fringe (Tim Minchin, who I'll talk about later, was more, but wasn't part of the Fringe proper; The Misanthrope, while part of the Fringe, I got my ticket for via my State Theatre Company subscription).

The same guy had been here in Fringes past, doing a one man version of the original Star Wars trilogy. But for different reasons – one year it clashed with a show I was doing; another I think the tickets sold out before I got mine – I never caught that one.

But when browsing the Fringe guide I spotted the advertisement and realised it'd be something I could go see with my LOTR-loving friend Tracey, if she was keen to see it. She was, so we bought our tickets.

And, while I still don't think it was worth $50 (that's a lot of money by Fringe standards; most of the other shows I saw were $20-$25), it was an excellent show. He went through all three films – well, the important and/or funny parts – using mime and doing all the voices.

Some of the characters were better than others – his Gandalf was okay and his hobbits good; his Saruman and Gollum were great, though, and his Denethor was hilarious, particularly when he did the scene where he eats while Pippin sings.

About my only real complaint is that he didn't make as many jokes in the first 'half' as he did in the second – well, apart from some digs at Legolas's hair. Overall, though, it was a great show.

Fabulosity!!

A not particularly inspiring standup comedy show; the redundant exclamation mark should have been a giveaway. Review here.

I am not Emily Dickinson

I wish I could say more about this but I can't; what little I could say is in the review.

Sammy J & Randy in 'Bin Night'

Another act I'd never managed to catch before, I decided I would fit them in this year.

Unfortunately, it was in Le Cascadeur, which is one of the crappiest of the tents in the Garden in terms of cramped and uncumfortable seating. And I got one of the worst seat in the place; the farthest seat on the left of the second row.

But despite the wretched seating, it was a brilliant show. They completely lost track of where they were a few times, but the improvisations they came up with to cover it were hilarious.

Full English

Truly awful standup show made even worse by the fact it was running half an hour behind and we had to stand outside in the cold until they were ready.

On the plus side, I had a ticket to see The Spaces Between for a second time, which meant I had an excuse to leave early – the first time I've left a show I was reviewing before it was finished. But I did get to see both performers (there were two), meaning I was justified in the comments I made. Of course it's possible the second guy saved the best material for the end of his bit, but I really don't think that was the case.

Review – my last for this Fringe, which was a bit sad – here.

The Spaces Between

Despite them also starting really late – there must've been something in the air – it was even better second time around, and I also think it was a slightly different set, though it's hard to remember specifics. Either way, I just served to make me love the Tom and Jen show even more.

Le Gateau Chocolat

Another show I'd been looking forward to seeing as soon as I'd seen the listing in the Fringe guide, as I'd seen him as part of the brilliant Company of Strangers back in 2009. That, combined will all the positive reports I was hearing about the show, meant that by the time I got to see it I was very excited indeed.

It was even better than I expected. Apart from the expected Old Man River – it's one of his standards and, as he said, pretty much a given for a black baritone – he sang a haunting version of Radiohead's Creep, got the audience singing with him on Nothing Compares 2U, and nearly brought me to tears with I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables.

I got more involved after being pulled out of the audience up on stage with a bunch of others and given lycra costumes to put on and have our photo taken with him:

Le Gateau Chocolat is, probably unsurprisingly, the one in the dress with the afro. I'm in the dark blue, third from the right and grinning like an idiot. Standing behind me is the oft-mentioned (and much loved) Matthew Carey, who was accompanying¹.

Up there with Bound and The Spaces Between as my picks of the Fringe. Really, the only disappointing thing about it was that I'd left seeing him so late in the season that I wouldn't be able to get to it a second time.

Follow Le Gateau Chocolat on Facebook here.

¹Matthew evidently has a thing for dress-ups; in Viva La Franglaise he donned a beret, and back when he was with Company of Strangers he put on a bear's head for a number.

Axis of Awesome

I'd seen AofA back in the Cabaret festival in 2009 and was keen to see them again this year.

The current show was much along similar lines; lots of clever, funny songs about any number of things, and a whole lot of shit dumped on Benny, the short one who plays keyboards. Oh, and the latest incarnation of their YouTube hit, The Four Chord Song.

Tim Minchin vs. the ASO

Apart from anything else this set a record for me for the greatest time between the purchase of the tickets (July 2010) and the seeing of the show (March 2010).

That aside, it was an odd show; having the ASO there was kind of cool, but it didn't really add that much to the whole experience. However, Tim himself was in fine form, and he played for something like two hours, so we got all the songs I was hoping he'd play like Prejudice and The Pope Song, as well as quite a few I hadn't heard before. He didn't do Storm, but I wasn't too unhappy.

The whole experience got just a little more surreal when I was at the Fringe Club after the show, 'cause Tim himself turned up and I ended up having quite a long conversation with him.

Good times.

Olympia Steampunk Spectacular

One of the stranger events of the festival, Olympia was an interactive, role-playing steampunk event, i.e. where we got dressed up in steampunk gear and were each allocated a character to play, with goals to achieve in the scenario they'd created.

I'd hit a combination of op-shops and costume stores to get my outfit together, and despite my not having had much time to do it, I was pretty happy with what I ended up with – though I was disappointed I hadn't been able to build an interesting steampunk weapon or device like I had for the party last year – as described in this post.

The event itself was fun, though more in the 'let's see people's costumes and devices' kind of way than a 'this is a great role-playing event' way; basically, I had a character without particularly well-defined objectives, so I didn't really know what I needed to do.

Bound

See the previous Fringesanity entry, and the review for what I thought of this the first time around.

I noticed a few little things the second time around, which was interesting; I rarely see a show more than once, so I can't honestly say if it's something that would happen with every show. But it was still as profoundly moving and utterly brilliant as it was when I saw it three and a half weeks pior.

A damn good way to finish a great near-month of theatre, music and comedy.

The final word

Actually, I'll save the final word for another post. I've got a few more things to say about the experience, but I want to get this one up on the blog – it's been weeks since I posted, and I consider that a bit slack.

So, keep an eye out for the next one.

Adelaide Fringe 2011 - final week plugs

2011-03-07T17:23:00.002+10:30

It's the last week of the Fringe, and there are a lot of shows still on. Here is a list of those I think you really should go see, by category. All the shows have links to the FringeTix page where you can buy tickets.

Now that I've done most of the work for you, go see some shows!

Theatre

Bound

Amazing show, given 5 stars (or the equivalent) in every review, including mine. Simply one of the best things I've ever seen, and should not be missed. If you live in Adelaide and I find you haven't gone to see this, expect me to become...unpleasant¹.

At: Holden Street Theatres
Ticket info: here
My review here

¹Okay, even more unpleasant than usual.

Phoenix Rising...DH Lawrence – Son & Lover

A show worth seeing simply for the wonderful performance by Paul Slack. His ability to play a wide range of characters is breathtaking, particularly the accents.
At: Higher Ground
Ticket info: here
My review here.

Mussolini: A one-man political farce

Another great one-man show from Ross Gurney-Randall, who brought us Goering's Defence. A clever, captivating and funny portrayal of another of history's interesting characters.

At: Higher Ground
Ticket info: here

Smiler

Richard Fry, who brought us Bully last year, is back with an even more powerful show. Exceptionally well-structured, cleverly delivered in rhyming couplets, it's one of the most touching performances you'll ever see; the front-of-house people tell me that nearly every show has had at least one audience member in tears.

At: Higher Ground
Ticket info: here

I, Elizabeth

An astonishing performance by Rebecca Vaughan makes this show another must-see. Get into the mind of Queen Elizabeth I via her own writings.
At: Higher Ground
Ticket info: here
My review here.

Shylock

A combination of history lesson and some of the best performances of Shakespeare passages you're ever likely to see, courtesy of the great Guy Masterson. One show only on Thursday March 10.

At: Royalty Theatre
Ticket info: here

Dead Men Don't

For something completetly different; it's a live-action radio play in the noir-detective style. Full of hilarious references to the genre, this a quirky, clever and funny show. If you see it, keep a careful eye on the sound effects crew at the back.

At: North Adelaide Community Centre
Ticket info here
My review here

Music

The Spaces Between

The Jane Austen Argument won the Best Cabaret award in the Fringe last year, and quite rightly; the talented duo produce some of the most touching and haunting songs I've ever heard. While you're there, grab a copy of their EP The Birthing Pyre.

At: Arcade Lane – Regent One
Ticket info: here

Comedy

Deanne Smith: About Freakin' Time

A great Canadian standup comic, Deanne Smith's 53-minute show is one of the best routines I've seen in years. I laughed my ass off. My review here.

At: Rhino Room - Downstairs
Ticket info: here
My review here

Sound & Fury's Spaceship Man

Frequent visitors to Adelaide, Sound & Fury have a history of putting on great semi-improv comedy shows, and their latest is Spaceship Man. Plenty of laughs to be had, and no shortage of references to classic and contemporary sci-fi.

At: AC Arts – Main Theatre
Ticket info here

Adelaide Fringe 2011 - Fringesanity Part 1

2011-02-28T18:04:00.000+10:30

Well, we're just over two weeks into the greater Fringe festival and, as planned, I've been to see a bunch of shows. Here's what I've seen up to the night of Friday February 25. I'm sorry I can't go into more details about the shows; there just isn't enough time to give everything the full treatment.

Viva La Franglaise

I saw this was on and was hoping to go, but then budgetary issues kicked in and it didn't make the cut. However, composer/performer Matthew Carey asked me if I'd like to go and write a review of it for Cabaret Confessional, and I did. It's a great show and I really hope he and singer Nikki Aitken make good on their plans to bring it back later in the year, since I'd like a) to see it again, and b) other people to see it as well.

What's also great about it is that it demonstrates just how good locally produced shows can be. A lot of great Fringe shows are from interstate and overseas, or are local companies doing existing shows – but this is a local duo coming up with something completely original and putting it on. And I don't think there's enough of that, so it needs to be encouraged.

Cabaret Confessional review here.

The Life and Death of Almost Everybody

The Company of Muses won a bunch of awards for their show The Cagebirds two Fringes ago, so – as I noted in my Fringe preview – I was looking forward to seeing this.

However, it didn't turn out to be as good as I'd expected, as the review indicates. Some further research led me to some synopses that indicated they'd made significant changes to the original script, and I suspect some of what got taken out might have made it work.

ATG review here.

Bound

I've seen a lot of theatre over the past dozen or so years; literally hundreds of shows. But I can't think of very many – if any – that I've seen which I'd rate higher than Bound. It's an absolutely stunning piece of theatre on every level – the concept, the writing, and the performance – and I was completely blown away by it, as has just about anyone else who's seen it; the reviews have been universally glowing.

Should I manage to find the time, I'll see it again.

ATG review here.

Steve Sheehan's A Little Horseplay

One of the oddest shows I've ever seen - at one point two people were sitting in egg-shaped chairs, swiveling, singing Lou Reed's 'Perfect Day' while a real, live miniature horse trotted around behind them. It's a work in progress, and a bit messy given that what I saw was the first attempt, but it was certainly memorable.

Adolf

The first of the Guy Masterson CIT shows for me this Fringe, Adolf was a very clever production – to the point where to explain it in detail would be giving away too much. Needless to say, it was one of the most confronting and thought-provoking shows I've seen.

My ATG review here.

It's a Dad Thing: The Musical

This show had received a great rap from the ATG reviewer, so I managed to get my name on the door to go see it – being old friends with the musical director, Sam Leske, helped.

Based on a play and put together by Adam Goodburn and the aforementioned Matthew Carey, and directed by David Lampard, it's a musical about five guys building a playground in their neighbourhood. They discuss all sorts of issues relating to fatherhood – sleepless nights, pre-natal classes, vasectomies, and the karmic nature of having daughters.

Clever, funny and very entertaining. Didn't change my mind about not wanting children, though...

Phoenix Rising

CIT show number two; a another one-man show, this one about the early life of English writer DH Lawrence – about whom I knew the sum total of one thing: that he'd written some books, Sons and Lovers and the controversial Lady Chatterley's Lover, neither of which I've read. The play, though, is about his childhood and early adulthood.

As my ATG review indicates, it was very good; the actor, Paul Slack is very talented at portraying multiple characters, and his accent work was especially good.

Ghost Sharks!

Every Fringe sees me visiting a new space; this time it was the upstairs lounge of the Gelatissimo on Rundle Street.

That was pretty much the most novel aspect of the experience, though; the show itself wasn't all that great. I felt the amount of material they'd come up with was only good enough for half an hour, and they stretched it out to an hour with improv and filler.

Review here.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

And now for something completely different: comic poetry. The review pretty much covers it; this was a lot of fun.

I, Elizabeth

CIT show number three. I'd seen Rebecca Vaughan in Austen's Women last year, and quite liked it; this though, was a much more impressive performance.

ATG review here; there's not much I can add.

Katie Noonan & The Captains

I was a big fan of George in the early days; starting from the first time in the 2000 Fringe, I saw nearly every gig they played in Adelaide in the four or five years after that. Now that Katie was back with her new band, I was keen to check them out.

Being compared to your old band can't be easy, but I'd be lying if I said I thought this new act were as good as George were. I still had a good time, though.

Shakespeare's Mothers

A good show; once again, the review says nearly everything there is to say.

@Shakespeare.com

A truly awful show. Just wretched on nearly every level. Review pretty much covers it, but I'll that they used most of the lyrics from The Whitlams' No Aphrodisiac, which is old enough to a) be completely out of place in a show supposedly about contemporary values, and b) add to the argument that the show was written by someone who isn't a teenager (and perhaps hasn't been for some time) but who labours under the delusion they are 'in touch with the young people'.

Review here.

Lists of Invisible Things

I heard about this show via tweets from Jane Howard and Ben Finn, two people whose opinions on such things I trust. So, I made a last minute change to my schedule to fit this show in.

And I'm very glad I did; it was brilliant – and almost impossible to describe. But the lead performer (there were three women; the singer/actor, a keyboardist and a tambourine/xylophonist) was amazingly talented as both a singer and an actor, and the songs (all originals) were brilliant.

The only downside is that the run is already over so, if you're in Adelaide, you can't go see it; however, I bumped into Caity Fowler (creator/performer), who said she was hoping to put it on again in Melbourne. So I'll be keeping my eye out for news on that and letting people know.

Oh, and it turns out that one of the other two is Jen Kingwell, one half of the awesome cabaret act The Jane Austen Argument, whose show The Spaces Between I'll be seeing this Friday.

Go here for Jane's far superior write-up of the show.

The Max & Dagger Show

I did a special blog post on this show, which you can find here.

The Six-Sided Man

Another CIT show, this one was a bit different – for starters, it had two actors when all the other shows I've seen this year have been solo performances.

This one was also a lot more surreal. It's about a psychiatrist who decides to base all his decisions on the roll of a die. What then takes place – well, as far as I can tell – is an exploration of some of the possibilities of what occurs after he makes this decision.

An interesting concept, and some very good acting, with a particular emphasis on the physical.

The Misanthrope

Having seen and enjoyed Brink's production of The Hypochondriac in late 2009, this – another Molière play – was a show I was very much looking forward to, and one of the reasons I decided to subscribe to the State Theatre Company 2011 season (as described here).

Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy the play very much at all. I think the biggest problem I had was that the contemporisation – moving the setting from the salon set of the 17th century to the entertainment (actors, writers and agents) of today, in London – didn't work. Yes, the salon set where the celebrities of their era, but despite certain parallels in their lifestyles, being a celebrity doesn't (as far as I'm concerned) drive people the same way as being a popular member of the nobility did back then.

After the show was the party for Red Carpet members – and, given I am one, I went. It was at Dragonfly, one of my favourite bars; apart from having a good atmosphere and being pleasantly small, it has Fat Yak (an excellent beer) on tap.

So, we hung out there for a few hours; I chatted to theatre bloggers/tweeters Sophie (Red Carpet ambassador) and Will, and – given that I'd had a few drinks and entered what's usually referred to as 'drunken fanboy mode' – spoke to some of the cast, namely Brendan Rock (who directed a great show I reviewed a few years back, Cold Comfort) and Renato Mussolino, who I've been seeing in shows for over ten years (I first saw him in a production of King Lear up at Carrick Hill, and he's been in plenty of others over the last few years) and at my gym for the last two.

But wait, there's more

Okay, to be completely accurate, there will be; you'll have to wait for the next instalment. I'd like to think it will be before the end of the Fringe, but I'm not making any promises.

For other reviews and news and so forth, check out these sites/blogs:

Adelaide Theatre Guide
Krytzoff
NoPlainJane
Adelaide ArtBeat
GlamAdelaide
The Barefoot Review
Cabaret Confessional

Fringe Review - The Max & Dagger Show

2011-02-25T11:28:00.000+10:30

Max is a fast talking, ukulele-playing, whip-cracking Texan; Jack Dagger is a Louisiana knife-thrower with nerves – and blades – of steel. Together they present The Max & Dagger Show, a mix of songs, comedy and death-defying stunts.

Shelby Bond is a Fringe veteran, having performed here over the years with Sound and Fury, mostly recently in their hilarious, highly acclaimed 2010 show Private Dick – which I wrote about in my post on last year's Fringe. It's Jack Dagger's first time, but, as his website indicates, he's no less accomplished a performer, being an award winning knife-thrower who has appeared on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

Musical comedy, whip-cracking and knife-throwing is an odd combination, but in the hands of these two – who both possess great stage presence and excellent comic timing – it works. It's the quirky, often self-deprecating humour that's typical of this genre of entertainment; think of them as something of a cowboy version of Flight of the Conchords – with whips and knives.

It's another of those great one-of-a-kind shows that the Fringe gives us the opportunity to see. Catch them in The Campanile in The Garden of Unearthly Delights from now to March 6; tickets available here.

The week that was #23

2011-02-13T17:23:00.000+10:30

The Fringe loometh¹

Pre-Fringe (i.e. those shows that start prior to the official Fringe opening on February 18) begins this week so this will probably be my last weekly update for a while as my time will become, well, scarce. But I will be making regular Fringe updates while it's on.

At this point I'll be seeing around forty shows, twenty reviews and about as many more by choice. There are quite a few I'd like to see but am not seeing, mostly because of lack of time and opportunity – I've also got to fit in a couple of non-Fringe things, like a buck's party and a birthday party – but also because of budget; as it is I'm looking at spending upward of $600 on tickets, and that's around the limit I'd set myself.

But I should have plenty to write about.

¹Yeah, yeah, I know it's not a word, but I'm feeling a bit retro this evening.

The Walking Dead

I got my hands on the first season of the tv series The Walking Dead a few months back and have just finished the last episode – not that it was much of a marathon, given that there are only six.

And it's about zombies. Okay, not about zombies – it's about a handful of people who're trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. In the US it's on AMC (a cable network), so they're free to be more violent than normal network television – so it's pretty gory, as you'd imagine, given the subject matter.

It follows what I guess are the 'standard' rules for zombies – they're mostly brainless, slow-moving monsters who attack en masse, and they have to be killed² or at least very seriously incapacitated before they stop. Zombieism³ is caused by infection from zombie bites, and zombies don't attack each other – interestingly, this last fact is shown (in this universe at least) to be because of smell.

Watching it reminded me a lot of Stephen King's The Stand which, while not about zombies as such, is about a small group of people who've survived an apocalypse, and how they deal with the situation they're in. And, like in King's book, it's prompted me to think about what people might do under those circumstances – since society as we know it, of course, wouldn't exist anymore.

What's also interesting is that the lead, Sheriff Rick Grimes, is played by Englishman Andrew Lincoln, of This Life, Teachers and Love Actually fame. It seems like an odd choice, but he's a good actor and he does a very credible American accent – and within a very short amount of time I was convinced.

Obviously, with only six episodes, not all that much happens. But it's well-written and well-thought-out, and they managed to fit enough action in to make it worthwhile. And it did well enough to be picked up for a second, thirteen-episode season, so there'll be more to look forward to sometime in the future.

²Shot in the head or decapitated.
³I'm aiming to make that one a word.

True Grit

This week's film – also the last for a while – was the Coen brothers' version (they're being very clear that it's not a remake of the 1969 version with John Wayne) of True Grit.

In Oklahoma, not long after the US Civil War, fourteen year old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is looking for a US Marshal to hunt down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), who robbed and killed her father before fleeing to land controlled by the Choctaw. After asking around she discovers the most suitable man for her needs is the drunken, grizzled, one-eyed reprobate Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) – his suitability coming from his apparent enthusiasm for meting out justice with his guns rather than leaving it for the courts.

She also happens across Texas Ranger LaBeouf (Matt Damon), who is also after Chaney for the murder of a Texas state senator. After some initial complications, the three set out together to find Chaney and bring him to justice. However, Chaney has teamed up with local gang leader 'Lucky' Ned Pepper (Barry Pepper), making catching him more complicated than they first envisaged.

I've never actually seen the original; despite being raised watching westerns, my father was more of a Clint Eastwood fan than a Duke fan – though I never asked why – so I never saw it. But, given I'm a massive fan of both Jeff Bridges and the Coen brothers⁴, I was always going to see this one.

And I'm glad I did; it's a very good film. All the typical Coen elements are there – stunning cinematography courtesy of Roger Deakins, minimalist score from Carter Burwell, and a razor-sharp script with a great combination of humour, action and tension. Mattie's dialogue in particular is spectacular, and Steinfeld makes it all sound plausible coming from a fourteen-year-old.

Performances are all excellent, particularly Bridges as the curmudgeonly, mumbles-to-the-point-of-incoherence Cogburn. But he is matched in many scenes by Steinfeld's strongminded Mattie. Matt Damon plays a mostly comic role as the dandyish LeBoeuf, a strong contrast to his hypercompetent Jason Bourne. Josh Brolin is excellent as a seemingly slow-witted Chaney, and Barry Pepper – who I've always liked but haven't seen in anything for years⁶ – is also great as the nasty (but strangely honourable) 'Lucky' Ned Pepper.

It's probably not up there with either of their best – The Big Lebowski or No Country for Old Men – but it's still worth seeing.

⁴It should be noted my all-time favourite film is The Big Lebowski – which, if you aren't aware⁵, is a Coen brothers film starring Jeff Bridges.
⁵I'll forgive you, this once – as long as you promise to find it and watch it as soon as you're able.
⁶I suspect it may have had something to do with having been in Battlefield Earth, widely considered one of the worst films ever made.

The week that was #22

2011-02-06T15:15:00.001+10:30

It's been a fairly busy week. When I haven't been out and about doing stuff, I've been trying to put my Fringe schedule together – and you can read about what I plan to see here.

Twilight (the film) with RiffTrax

Given how I felt about the book – which you can read about here – seeing the film adaptation of the first Twilight book wasn't on my to do list.

But then I discovered RiffTrax.

The brainchild of the guys behind Mystery Science Theatre 3000, which took old b-grade sci-fi and horror film and added commentary ('riffs') to them, RiffTrax is the continuation of that, only now the movies they give the treatment to are modern, big-budget films.

All you do is download the mp3 – the cost varies, but the Twilight one was US$4; you can buy packages, which works out a bit cheaper – and then let it play. You have to synch it up with the film, but that's relatively easy, since there's a regular reminder ('Disembaudio') which speaks a line of dialogue; if it's spoken at the same time as it's said in the movie, you're at the right spot.

And what it provides is snarky, smartass commentary about the plot, characters and dialogue – and if you're a regular visitor here you'll know that's exactly my idea of a good time.

There's a scene where Bella¹ is friendly to a waitress; the commentary goes something along the lines of "This is the kindest she's ever been treated in her seventeen years as a diner waitress; she can be heard weeping from the bathroom."

Some more examples:

Bella holds her mobile phone in a very strange way: “Maybe you should try holding your cell in a quirky manner.”

Edward displays one of his many creepy expression: “That look from the 'guy in car peeping in on yoga class through binoculars' collection.”

Bella, waiting for Edward in the school carpark, pretends to read: “Can't socialise – obsessed with crappy book series.”

Adoraklutz¹ Bella slips on the ice: “Damn Macauley Culkin. Iced our steps again.” and “Also I drank a 40 for breakfast, so...”

Bella's police chief father explains another mysterious death: “I think it was a bear, 'cause it sucked all the blood from his corpse, you know.”

Edward doesn't respond to Bella, but instead adopts a pained expression: “Line.”

And it's hilarious. I laughed my ass off the whole way through. There's really no way I could have watched the film without it; it's really quite awful. The acting is dreadful, and, since they've only got the wretched original stupid story to work with, the plot is woeful and so little of what occurs makes any sense whatsoever.

There are several improvements, though. By virtue of the fact it's not told from Bella's perspective, you don't have to hear the awful misuses of the English language present in the book; then there's the related issue (since it's now from an omniscient narrator viewpoint) of them adding a murder/mystery element to increase tension – though this would only be of value to people who hadn't read the book.

You can see the complete list and purchase your own RiffTrax on the official site. I'll no doubt be listening to a few more in the future – though perhaps not in the near future; I've got a Fringe to think about.

¹Hat tip to My Spidey Sense is Tingling for introducing me to that word.

Black Swan

This week's film was Black Swan.

It's the story of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), a dancer in a New York ballet company; she is cast as the Swan Queen in the upcoming production of Swan Lake, a difficult and challenging role that requires her to move beyond her otherwise exceptional technical expertise and discover her 'dark side'.

Complicating the issue is her relationship with her overprotective and more than a little obsessive mother Erica (Barbara Hershey), her mercurial director Thomas (Vincent Cassel), and 'bad girl' dancer Lily (Mila Kunis), Nina's polar opposite in terms of approach and lifestyle.

The film follows her struggle to deal with the pressure of all these influences, and her eventual descent in madness – how deep she sinks, though, is never really made clear; it's that uncertainty that makes the film not only dark and disturbing, but thoroughly gripping.

Natalie Portman is nothing short of brilliant in the role – probably why she's picked up a swag of awards (including a Golden Globe) and is the odd-on favourite to win the Oscar. The supporting cast is also exceptional, particularly Kunis and Hershey.

Director Darren Aronofsky seems to have distilled the standout elements of his two previous best films to make this – it combines the darkness and twisted psychology of Requiem for a Dream and the fanatical dedication to a craft that drove The Wrestler.

It's stylistically brilliant – shot in an otherwise naturalistic, nigh-on documentary style, there is a gradual increase in fantasy elements, done to parallel Nina's growing break from reality. And of top of this is frequent Aronofsky collaborator Clint Mansell's powerful score – mostly variations on the music from Swan Lake² – which adds to the impact.

And it's the best film I've seen in the last year. Yes, I liked The Social Network, The King's Speech and Winter's Bone but this hit me a lot harder than any of those.

²The original composer, of course, being Tchaikovsky.

Sufjan Stevens

Electic folk musician Sufjan Stevens played his first-ever Adelaide gig during the week and I – being a big fan of his album Illinois – went along.

Illinois, though, was a while ago, and his style of music has changed substantially since then; he's gone a lot more electronic and (for want of a better word) soundscape-y. And I'm not as fond of the newer stuff as I am of the older. But he has a reputation as an excellent live performer, so I was keen to see what he could do.

The result was, well, interesting. Flamboyant – fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark – costumes and video projection, and some very lengthy asides about life and spirituality and the influence of the late Royal Roberston, an eccentric American outsider artist.

While I enjoyed it, I think I'd have been happier had I seen him tour the Illinois album; I far prefer that style of music. You can read a review here.

If you've never heard his music, here are a couple of tracks; the first two from Illinois, and the third from his recent album, The Age of Adz:

The Red Shoes

2011-02-04T18:58:00.001+10:30

I got to see a very interesting show last night: Kneehigh Theatre's The Red Shoes, at Her Majesty's Theatre.

Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a girl who winds up with a pair of red shoes that are cursed so she can't stop dancing or take them off, it's done in what can best be described in a dark, twisted cabaret style¹. There's a cross-dressing narrator, four performers (three of which play multiple characters) and two musicians, and between them they tell the story on a relatively simple set: mostly a raised platform with an arch (upon which the narrator perches) and a set of folding doors.

It is a different kind of cabaret, for want of a better description; at its heart it's a physical theatre/movement work, and at times (with the narrator on the platform above) feels almost like a live-action puppet show. There's music, but it's almost entirely instrumental rather than sung - apart from a few (hilarious) lip-synched segments, including some opera. Much of the music is recorded, but almost all the pieces are added to by the two musicians (and occasionally the othe cast members), who between them play harp, guitar, mandolin, banjo, piano accordian², brass, woodwind and even a hurdy-gurdy. The fourth wall gets tossed aside; the performers - the narrator in particular - all engage with the audience throughout.

Overall, It's hilarious and captivating, and one of the most original shows I've ever seen. The dialogue - courtest of poet Anna Maria Murphy - is clever and funny, and is enhanced by the performers' tremendous skills at physical theatre. If you like dark and quirky theatre, check it out. It's only on in Adelaide for a couple more nights; tickets are through BASS. Also check out Kneehigh's site, and read reviews and interviews with the creators on the ShoGo page³.

¹It reminded me in many ways of a show I saw last year, Smoke & Mirrors; you can read the review here.
²Last Cabaret Festival a discussion about what does and doesn't fit the description of 'cabaret' came up; last night I came to the conclusion that, all else aside, if it features the use of a piano accordian, it's definitely cabaret.
³Not sure when these will appear, but it should be soon.

The week that was #21

2011-01-30T13:08:00.001+10:30

Not a lot going on this week, but there were a couple of things worth noting.

The Millennium trilogy

Over the last couple of months I've read the three books in Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

I'd heard of them, but not much about them; in fact, the first time I really started thinking about reading them was after the success of the film version of Dragon Tattoo¹. So, when my friend and co-worker Rachel said she had them if I wanted to borrow them, I – having nothing else to read at the time – jumped at the chance.

Having studiously avoided reading much more about them than the titles, I wasn't really quite sure what to expect. But I was a little taken aback by how unimpressed I was when I started reading Dragon Tattoo, since it took quite a while for it to get interesting. But it did get interesting, and so I stuck with it all the way to the end.

While I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be, I decided I'd give Fire a shot, and found that, from very early on, I was liking it a lot more than that I'd liked the first. It was a lot better paced than Dragon Tattoo – i.e. faster, more action-packed – with a more interesting set of plot developments.

After knocking that one off, I got straight into Hornet's Nest. While probably not as good as Fire, it was still better than Dragon Tattoo, and built very well to the climax; so well that I couldn't stop reading until I'd finished it.

So, definitely enjoyable reading, but it's not without its flaws. The two lead characters, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander (the titular 'girl' of the titles) are both bordering on Mary Sue territory, which makes following their adventures slightly less satisfying. There are graphic scenes of sexual violence – mostly in Dragon Tattoo³ – that I don't think needed to be as detailed as they were.

One of the things I did like about it was that, by virtue of being set in Sweden with (mostly) Swedish characters, it had a very different feel from other stories; most crime novels I've read have been set in either the USA or the UK. The differences are subtle, but significant, and mostly to do with how people react to the situations they're faced with.

I haven't seen any of the Swedish film versions, but I'll almost certainly see the English-language remake, since they've cast Daniel Craig as Blomkvist, and it's to be directed by David Fincher and the soundtrack composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross⁴.

¹I'm going to abbreviate for the rest of the post, out of sheer laziness.
²Its original Swedish title was Män som hatar kvinnor – 'Men who hate women' – which is a lot more indicative of the content; there are some seriously nasty guys involved.
³Fincher, Reznor and Ross, of course, worked together on The Social Network – which I wrote about here – and they all won Golden Globes for their efforts, as did the film itself. It's not impossible that they'll do the same at the Oscars, since they (and it) have all been nominated.

Rocky Horror

In what appears to be becoming a tradition I went with some friends to the Moonlight Cinema to see the cultest⁴ of cult films, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

And, like people the world over – and no small number of people in Adelaide that night – my friends and I went to see it because I enjoy the participation aspects that have become the standard practice for screening of the film: shouting stuff out, throwing things in the air, and running up to the screen to dance to Time Warp.

Read the Wikipedia article for a fuller description. See here for the script we had, one of several different versions out there.

Unfortunately, it appears that this tradition isn't as well known as one would think, since and there were people who didn't realise that's what happens, and got somewhat abusive. It didn't stop us, but it was kind of annoying – something like if you were in the Barmy Army at the cricket and a gaggle of ignorant hicks kept telling you to stop singing songs.

So, before the next one I'm going to make a concerted effort to publicise the fact so that it doesn't happen again. The Moonlight Cinema people said they're going put something on the website as well, which could help. What I'd also like is to co-ordinate with others who are there for the participation so there are a whole bunch of us together; everything will sound a lot better in chorus.

Actually, come to think of it, if you're reading this and someone mentions they're going, please ask them if they're aware that people are going to yell stuff out. If they aren't, please warn them what they're in for.

Another downside was the script we had – it was far too involved; I spent way too much time looking at it rather than the screen. A lot of the callbacks are far too long, and many of them involve trying to shout over the actual dialogue (the best ones make use of the long pauses), which I dislike. Before next year I'm hoping to either find a lighter version of the script, or modify the existing one to fit my needs.

Despite all of that, it was still fun. We got rained on quite a bit – which was kind of ironic, given that one of the standard actions is to shoot water pistols into the air because there's a rain scene in the film; if only it'd been ten minutes earlier⁵ we needn't have bothered with the liquid arsenal.

⁴I'm aware that's not really a word, but I don't care.
⁵Or possibly later; I can't recall exactly.

The week that was #20

2011-01-24T16:56:00.000+10:30

Do I think this song is about me?

In the last The Week That Was I wrote about the weirdest thing I'd ever seen; what I came across this week may actually top that.

It's this:

Yeah, it's a YouTube video of a song by The Sensational Mary Barclay Band, called, of all things, Jamie Wright.

That's my name!

Really, it shouldn't have come as much of a shock as it did. I have one of the most common given names (which is actually James; Jamie is just what I go by, mostly because I think it suits me more than James); Wright is also a very common name amongst people of English descent – though, as noted in this post, 'my' branch of the Wright family comes via the USA.

So I have kind of experienced this before in real life – in the 1980s there was (and still is) Dr James Wright, who showed up on tv from time to time.

Then there's Jaime (note spelling) Wright, a model and shoe designer from Murray Bridge, South Australia. Her name gets the most hits on Google; this may or may not be because one of the things she models is bikinis.

A Jamie Wright plays ice hockey in the US NHL; another is a web designer.

The name – James Wright – turned up in a movie, That Thing Called Love, played by the late River Phoenix in one of his last films. Watching that was a similar kind of odd 'cause the name gets spoken over a loudspeaker, something along the lines of 'James Wright to the stage; James Wright' – and when I heard it, I nearly fell off my chair in shock.

Anyway, back to the song.

Obviously, at no point did I consider that the Jamie Wright in the song was me because – a) the person the lyrics describe isn't anything like me, and b) the band is from Scotland.

It's still an odd feeling though. But, my name aside, it's actually a really nice song – Mary Barclay has a great voice – and I'm glad I came across it. I even became a fan of the band on Facebook, and have had a conversation with Mary about it.

Maybe if my plans to get to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe some time in the next few years comes to fruition they'll be playing somewhere I can see them.

Blue Valentine

I saw Blue Valentine this week, and it was an interesting film, if not an especially pleasant one; the sort of thing I'd describe as something I respected, as opposed to enjoyed.

Starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, it's the story of Dean and Cindy, a couple with a young daughter; right from the start, though, it's made clear that not all is well between the two, and it doesn't seem to be getting better. Over the course of the film there are flashbacks to how the two met, and other key moments in their relationship.

It's not by any standards a happy film. What does make it worth seeing – if you're okay with the bleakness – is how damn realistic it all is. As a result, watching it is kind of voyeuristic, and (for me at least) grating and difficult to watch.

But it's a reminder of why Ryan Gosling is one of the best actors around, and why Michelle Williams was far, far better than Dawson's Creek would have you think.

Anne Hathaway, Glee and Batman number three

If you've read this post¹ you'll be aware I've a fondness for Anne Hathaway. So, I was very pleased to hear about her upcoming schedule – a) she's doing an episode of Glee, and b) she's going to be playing Catwoman in the next Batman film.

Now, I'm a Glee fan – I wrote about it in a The Week That Was you can find here – and, while I don't think the more recent episodes are as good as the earlier ones, it's still enjoyable. So this is really a bonus rather than a game-changer like it is for Batman.

Because, unlike just about everyone else I know, I really haven't liked the new Batman films very much at all.

I don't really know why, exactly. I didn't see Batman Begins at the cinema, which didn't help, since my devotion to seeing films on the big screen is mostly because I enjoy them a lot more that way; dvd just doesn't work for me as well.

But when I did see it, I didn't think it anything special. Admittedly, my interest in action films had started to wane by the time I saw it, so that would have played a part. However, I did go to see The Dark Knight at the cinema, but that was solely due to the casting of Heath Ledger as The Joker; I didn't actually like the film that much overall, but I thought Ledger was phenomenal and meant it was worth seeing just for that.

I'd decided to reserve my judgement on whether or not I'd see the third one until there'd been some casting news. And, given that he's cast Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, it looks like director Christopher Nolan wants me to see the film.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt that he's also cast Tom Hardy – who played Eames in Inception, and was excellent – as well.

¹And if you haven't you should. Just as soon as you've finished this one.

Tangled

I wouldn't normally see two films in the space of week, but I wanted to see Tangled in 3D at Palace, and the only session time was 2pm, meaning I'd have to go on the weekend – so I did.

You wouldn't call me a fan of Disney animation. The last Disney film I saw at all was The Emperor's New Groove, and the last one I saw in the cinema was Aladdin – and that was a long time ago. I liked both of those – the former a great deal, though that may be more because of my fondness for llamas and llama-like creatures (i.e. alpacas) than anything else – but none they've made since has drawn me to see it.

But I started hearing good things about Tangled and, combined with the fact it's in 3D – while I'm against the format being used inappropriately², I like what it does for CGI films – meant that I made up my mind to see it.

It is, if you haven't seen the previews or read anything about it, the classic story of Rapunzel (she of the very long hair and the high tower) given an upgrade, the most significant of which is the introduction of a new character, the roguish Flynn Rider, who helps her in her quest to leave the tower.

While it is still a very 'Disney' Disney film – lacking the intellectual muscle of something like Up or even Toy Story – there's plenty of good things about it: there are songs³ (but not too many), and a lot of humour. It looks fantastic; they've paid a lot of attention to detail and it shows.

They've had a lot of fun with the characters; apart from the main two, there's a whole seedy bar full of thugs (with hidden depths), twin ruffians (one voiced by the awesome Ron Perlman⁴), a very doglike horse (named Maximus) and my favourite, a helpful chameleon named Pascal.

You can even buy a plush Pascal on Amazon:

Yeah, I want one. And I shall have one, as soon as I find where they're sold; I'm assuming Toys'R'Us will have them.

So, like I said, a very good movie. Not brilliant, but certainly a lot of fun. I laughed a lot and, considering that it was only a few days after I'd seen the uber-awkward (and previously discussed) Blue Valentine, I was glad I did.

²The Green Hornet would be the current example. It just doesn't make any sense to me to make that in 3D. I don't really like that the final instalment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is 3D, but at least it's high fantasy, rather than action/adventure taking place in 'our' world, so to speak.
³By Alan Menken, who's won eight Academy Awards for composing. That's the most of anyone alive!
⁴Great actor, turns up all over the place but is most well-known for playing the title character in the Hellboy films.

Fringe 2011 Preview

2011-01-19T22:21:00.001+10:30

Most of you probably know that I'm a theatre reviewer (it's not like I don't mention it on at least a semi-regular basis), but I've probably never explained just what a big deal the Adelaide Fringe festival has been for me over the years.

In many ways it was a validation of my choice to move to Adelaide from Townsville, all the way back in late 1997. It certainly wasn't why I moved here, since I'd never heard of the thing before I got down here, and it wasn't until the Fringe guide showed up in January 1998 that I even knew it existed.

I asked my then-friends/flatmates about this Fringe thing and they – being, for want of a better expression, woefully culturally deprived – couldn't tell me much at all. So I flipped through it and found a show that sounded interesting. And then another, and another and another. All up I think I found a dozen shows to see.

So I went to my dozen shows – a mix of plays, musicals and whichever category you'd put The Jim Rose Circus into – and enjoyed every minute of it, even the rather terrible (and unlikely named) Hell: The Musical. Of course, it helped that the Pearl Jam concert was on that week as well – but even if it hadn't I'd still have had a great time.

And since then I've always looked forward to the Fringe. I've even performed in the Fringe: back in 2000, as part of the Freshbait program, and then again in 2007 in a live-action radio play.

Put it this way: I get asked from time to time if I'm excited about things – Xmas, my birthday, holidays etc. – and my usual response is 'I don't really get excited'. Well, the Fringe is the exception; sitting down to go through the Fringe guide to pick out shows and work out a schedule is about as excited as I get.

So, I've gone over the guide, and here are the shows that I think are worth seeing and why. I've separated them into the different sections. Where appropriate I've pasted in some of the blurb from the guide.

Cabaret

A Bob Dylan Celebration: Aussie Bob and the Rolling Downunder Review

This is on the list mostly 'cause my friend Fiona is in it, playing violin. But I know she wouldn't be involved in anything that wasn't of a high standard, so I'm hoping I can catch it. Plus I like the music of Bob Dylan, so it should be a good show.

Burlesque Upon a Time

Another show with friends – one the very talented Cara Brown – in it. Guide says:

“Escape into a fairytale of burlesque, vaudeville, and cabaret with Peaches 'n' Gin! Here the Snow Queen is just misunderstood, Sleeping Beauty has more bedroom skills then sleeping, and what really happened to Cinderella after midnight? This bedtime story for adults is a teasing tale that won't help you sleep!”

Bygone Error and Friends

“British Music Hall songs with a good dollop of comedy. Something musical, something lyrical, something witty, something ever so pun-ishingly English!”

I haven't seen this show, but have heard good things about it, and I've met one of the people involved. And the idea of British Music Hall music is also intriguing; I like to be intrigued. Plus one of the people in it is Christian Reynolds, who's a very clever fellow indeed; he's also a keen steampunk enthusiast and is involved in running in Olympia – A Steampunk Spectacular!, which I'll talk about later.

Le Gateau Chocolat

Le Gateau Chocolat was part of one of the best shows I've ever seen – A Company of Strangers – back in Fringe 2009. He's hilarious, outrageous and sings like an angel (albeit a 250lb lycra-clad black English angel); I am definitely going to see this. Heck, I may even go twice.

The Spaces Between

Smack!

That's the sound of my hitting myself in the back of the head for not getting to see the show this group – The Jane Austen Argument – did last year. But I did get to see them when they showed up to play with Amanda Palmer at her show. They were great, and won the cabaret award in last year's Fringe.

Comedy

Barry Morgan's World of Organs

“Mr Barry Morgan, the ultimate organ salesman will delight you, the music loving public, with a memorable musical experience in the form of an organ demonstration on the 1981 Hammond Aurora Classic.”

I know nothing about this guy, but the concept sounds awesome; I'm a huge fan of the Hammond Organ.

Fear of a Brown Planet Attacks

I reviewed these guys in last year's Fringe – read about it here. Definitely worth catching for standup that's not only funny but clever and socially relevant as well.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

I don't know much about this show, but I do know one of the producers. However, that isn't what's drawn me to this, it's the blurb:

"Everybody starts somewhere, and most misfits bloom into their own strange and exotic flower in the hothouse of high school. For Poet Laureate Telia Nevile it was a time of pitfalls and peaks, secret poetry and public scorn."

Pretty much anything with the word 'scorn' in it is going to draw my attention.

Ghost Sharks!

I saw Death in Bowengabbie in 2009 and loved it; its writer, Caleb Lewis, has teamed up with comedians Mark Trenwith and Scott John in what I suspect will be a clever, funny show.

Guy Pratt's Wake Up Call!

The fact that Guy Pratt's played bass for Pink Floyd is pretty much reason alone to go see him; that he's got a reputation of being a really good standup clinches it. Guide says:

“Pink Floyd’s bassist returns to regale us with more hilarious tales from the mini bar and the absurdities of life for the touring musician. Guy reveals stories from the pointy end of the music business, and the madness that comes with breathing the rarefied air of the Superstar.”

One Man Lord of the Rings

Despite not having gotten to see the one-man Star Wars this guy's done in Fringes past – damn scheduling conflicts – I've only ever heard good things. And, since I'm a fairly enthusiastic LOTR fan (nothing too extreme; I don't dress up or anything), I'd almost certainly enjoy it. Guide says:

“Performing the complete Lord of the Rings Trilogy- from the Shire to the Fire- armed with nothing more than some elbow pads and his outrageous imagination, Charles Ross recreates the entire world of Middle-earth and all its characters in 3600 seconds of unbelievable non-stop energy! Not to be missed!”

Only negative is that it's $49, which is a heck of a lot by Fringe standards.

Philip Escoffey: Six More Impossible Things Before Dinner

This is a must-see. I saw his previous show last Fringe (it's in the post I linked to above) and it was one of the best things I've ever seen. Escoffey is a mentalist – like the tv show – and does amazing tricks that you'd swear could only be done via psychic powers which, as he frequently reminds the audience, don't exist.

Sound & Fury's Spaceship Man

Another on the must-see list; their show Private Dick – here last year – was one of the funniest things I've seen. And this time around they're in a bigger space (one of the theatre in the AC Arts complex) with more comfortable seats.

The Axis of Awesome: Songs in the Key of Awesome

I didn't this musical comedy trio last Fringe, but I did see them in the previous year's cabaret festival, and they're brilliant. Much in the vein of Tripod, but a bit more belligerent; think more Tenacious D.

The Bedroom Philosopher - Wit-Bix

I've heard plenty of good things about The Bedroom Philosopher, but have never managed to see him; this year I intend to remedy that. Can't say much more.

Music

Amanda Palmer

The first lady of punk cabaret seems to making the Fringe a regular event, which I'm mostly okay with – the only downside being that in many ways I'd prefer to see her do a full length gig somewhere like Thebbie or The Gov than a one-hour show in the Spiegeltent.

But a one-hour show from Amanda Palmer is still a good one.

Katie Noonan & the Captains

Katie from George (who I saw in the 2000 Fringe) is back with her (relatively) new band; she's one of the best singers this country's ever seen, and always surrounds herself with great musicians, so these guys are likely to be great.

Mark Oates and the Daniel Brunner Pretty Big Band

Mark Oates is a very talented local performer who won a 2008 ATG Curtain Call award for his amazing performance as Jean Valjean in the Gilbert & Sullivan society's production of Les Miserables, which I saw and was totally blown away by; Daniel Brunner is an excellent musician; I've done backstage crew for shows in which he's been in the orchestra, and he's got a great reputation amongst the Adelaide theatre community.

Sounds like a good combination to me.

Theatre

@Shakespeare.com

I like Shakespeare. I like people doing interesting things with Shakespeare. This show – coming to us from Notre Dame University in the US – sounds like it meets that description.

“Could texting have saved Romeo and Juliet? @shakespeare.com Shakespeare and technology collide! The result - a dramatic and hilarious expose of modern communication using the most famous of the bard's themes, plots and characters. The NDU collective uses all the techniques of modern performance practice in this amazing devised performance!”

Guy Masterson and the Centre for International Theatre

Guy Masterson, for want of a better word, is a genius. He's directed an Olivier-award¹ winning show (Morecombe), and he's brought some of the best shows the Fringe has seen over the last few years – as a performer, his one-man versions of Animal Farm and Under Milk Wood were brilliant, as was the two-hander The Sociable Plover; as a director he's responsible for Playing Burton, easily one of the best shows I've ever seen – and he's back this year with some more, some new and some old.

They are: Adolf; American Poodle; Goering's Defence; I, Elizabeth; Mussolini; Oleanna; Phoenix Rising: D. H. Lawrence - Son & Lover; Shylock and Smiler.

The CIT is also doing a series of masterclasses, which are probably worth going to if you're a performer. I'm planning to see the vocal technique, accents and dialogue class that's on Thursday March 3rd; I'd like to see the physical performance session, but it's on a Wednesday, which I can't take off.

¹The English equivalent of the Tony award, i.e. pretty damn prestigious and certainly not easy to come by. Check out the list of categories and winners here.

Dracula A Bloody Good Musical

Another show I found in the guide and which just sounds hilarious. For all I know it could be truly awful, but I reckon I'm going to go see it anyway. And that, to an extent, is what the Fringe is all about – taking chances on seeing things you know nothing about. Every now and then you're going to see something ghastly but, from experience, more often than not it turns out okay.

Macbeth

This is here simply because it's ~~Macbeth~~ The Scottish Play², and, as I noted earlier, I like seeing what people do with Shakespeare. Here's what the guide says:

“Six players create Shakespeare's Macbeth with a flurry of swords, physical characterisations, blood, mud, bare feet and live music. Body in Space presents a minimalist tragedy that brings Shakespeare's words to life as never before.”

²Just in case...

Accidental Productions

Accidental Productions are an Adelaide company who've put on some great shows over the last few years. So, with that in mind, all of their offerings in this year's Fringe go on the list. They are: Bred To Perfection, Just Douglas, The Disturbed Couples Hour!, The Lesson and The Ridiculous Files.

The Life and Death of Almost Everybody

Company of Muses won a bunch of ATG Curtain Call awards a few years back – for Cagebirds, a show I didn't get to see – which is enough for me to consider them worth a look. Guide says:

“A lone sweeper in an empty theatre creates a world of his own imagining. He conjures a man and a woman, who rebelliously take on a life of their own. In this allegorical struggle convergent realities dissect human frailty with vicious delight.”

The Musical of Musicals (The Musical)

There are some Adelaide theatre people involved in this, and it sounds great. Guide says:

“... a fabulous five-part cabaret-style musical, which honours and parodies five respected, influential creators of musical theatre. In this hilarious satire, one story becomes five delightful musicals, each written in the distinctive style of a different master of the form.”

Events

Olympia – A Steampunk Spectacular!

In other words, a steampunk ball.

I'm quietly very fond of steampunk – read this post to see some pictures of the steampunk gun and costume I put together for a friend's birthday party last year – so now there's another reason to get dressed up, I'm all for it.

Further information

Read about my adventures over festival season in 2010 here.

I'll be trying to make regular updates here on the blog, but it'll depend on how busy I am. Proper reviews will appear on the ATG website – you can also follow the ATG on Twitter to get frequent updates on when reviews are posted. I'll no doubt be tweeting regularly, so feel free to follow me. The Twitter hashtag for the Fringe is #adlfringe.

The Fringe ticketing website – where you can search for show information as well as buy tickets – is here. Also check out TalkFringe, which is where people post their own short reviews of shows, with ratings – and, since the ratings are aggregated, there's always a list of the most popular shows, which is handy if you aren't sure what to see.

And of course you can contact me at jamiewriteswords@gmail.com and ask me any questions you like.

Hope to see you out and about during Adelaide's fantastic festival season!

The King's Speech

2011-01-12T22:03:00.004+10:30

Even though I'm in the middle of writing my Fringe 2011 preview, I had to take the time to write a quick review of The King's Speech, which I saw Monday night.

It is 1925 and Prince Albert¹, Duke of York (i.e. the younger son of the current monarch of England, at this point George V; the elder son is always the Prince of Wales) has a problem; he has to give speeches – the King having embraced radio as an effective means of communication – and he stutters badly.

After trying numerous different 'experts' his gives up. His wife Elizabeth (who we know better as the Queen Mother), however, does not; she visits Lionel Logue, an Australian speech therapist (and failed actor), and she convinces Albert to seek his help.

So yeah, it's not an adrenaline-fuelled rollercoaster ride by any standards. There is drama, though; the ascension of Albert's brother Edward to the throne is problematic because of his relationship with the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson, as well as the timing – it is 1936 and Hitler's Germany is starting to look dangerous for the rest of Europe.

The performances, however, are amongst the best I've seen – Firth's in particular. That someone so accustomed to playing cool, confident characters can do such a convincing job of playing such an (initially) awkward, nervous man (what TV Tropes would call the woobie) is indicative of great ability – which is probably why he's considered a likely Oscar contender.

Geoffrey Rush's performance is less obvious, but his Lionel Logue is both strong and genuine; he is a rock for the Prince to stand upon. Similarly, Helena Bonham-Carter, after several far darker and nastier roles (e.g. Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter films), is the picture of both strength and compassion.

Small but pivotal roles are played by great actors: Derek Jacobi is the rather unpleasant Archbishop of Canterbury; Timothy Spall is Winston Churchill; Michael Gambon is George V; Guy Pearce is the self-absorbed playboy Edward VIII; and, as Logue's wife Myrtle, Jennifer Ehle is reunited on screen with Colin Firth – at the time I hadn't realised who it was; if I had the moment would've been so much more significant².

One of the more interesting aspects – from my perspective at least – is how it demonstrates the role of the monarchy to the English. I'm as republican³ as they come, but that's because I'm Australian; the film made me realise that the monarch can actually be a figurehead – in an inspirational sense – to a country in times of need.

Apparently they've taken a few liberties with a few things – most significantly the timing of events in order to give it a bit more intensity – but those are (to me at least) perfectly acceptable.

Really, this is a great film – the story is far more interesting than it might sound, and the characters and the performances are captivating; it also looks fantastic – they've gone to a great deal of trouble to make everything look authentic and period: the palaces, Logue's office, and the control room of the BBC.

If you don't mind that there are no explosions, or car chases, or super-hot anthropomorphic computer programs⁴, go see this film.

Update 1: I neglected to mentioned that the film had been nominated for a stack of Golden Globe awards in the Drama category - Best Actor (Colin Firth), Best Supporting Actor (Geoffrey Rush), Best Supporting Actress (Helena Bonham Carter), Best Director (Tom Hooper), Best Screenplay (David Seidler), and Best Original Score (Alexandre Desplat).

Despite being nominated for so many, it only took home one: Best Actor for Colin Firth.

The Academy Award nominations haven't been announced yet, but it seems fairly certain it'll get a few nods; Colin firth is apparently at unbackable odds to take home the Oscar for Best Actor – and I can't say I'd be unhappy to see that.

I'll update again once the nominations are out – and then again after the ceremony.

¹No, not that Prince Albert. That was his great-grandfather.
²Why? Because Jennifer Ehle played Lizzie Bennett against Firth's Mr Darcy in the definitive BBC production of Pride & Prejudice; no other version even comes close – Keira Knightley, I'm looking in your scrawny direction.
³To reassure any American readers, that's a small 'r' – in this context it means I would like to see Australia become a republic.
⁴That's what Olivia Wilde and Tron: Legacy are for. Read more about it here.

The week that was #19

2011-01-09T14:15:00.000+10:30

It's been a while since I did a catch-all post, but a few things have happened over the last week or so; however, none is really worth devoting a standalone blog post to. So, I felt it was time to resurrect The Week That Was series.

Of course, whether or not there'll be another is wholly dependent on what else goes on – though I know what my next post is going to be: my 2011 Adelaide Fringe preview.

Pete Postlethwaite

A sad thing that happened this week was the passing of legendary actor Pete Postlethwaite, aged 64. The distinctive-looking Englishman appeared in several of my favourite films – Romeo + Juliet (as Friar Lawrence), The Usual Suspects (as Kobayashi) and In the Name of the Father (as Guiseppe Conlon) – as well as numerous others; he was someone I was almost always pleased to see in a film because he always added so much.

Unfortunately, the last thing I saw him in – The Town; read my review here – wasn't (in my opinion at least) one of his better roles; it wasn't, however, his performance that was the problem, it was the character and the dialogue, neither of which were worthy of him.

But there are plenty of films of his I plan to rewatch in the near future, probably starting with the one that won him an Oscar-nomination, In the Name of the Father¹ .

Anyway, for a far better analysis of his life and work, check out this obituary.

¹He was up against some serious competition: John Malkovich for In the Line of Fire, Leonardo DiCaprio (with whom he would appear several years later in Romeo + Juliet) for What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Ralph Fiennes (with whom he would appear in The Constant Gardener) for Schindler's List, and Tommy Lee Jones, who took home the statuette for his role in The Fugitive.

Sydney Test match agony

The second-saddest thing that happened this week was the culmination of Australia's miserable season of Ashes test cricket (the loss which I've already written), being beaten once again by an innings – the first time we've ever lost by an innings three times in one series.

Once again our batting collapsed (twice); once again our bowlers were ineffective. Really, there were very few moments when we ever looked like England's equals.

At least it's over. It's really not often I can say that I'm happy a test series is over – as noted in the linked article, I love watching test cricket more than any other sport, and I really don't get to see as much as I'd like – but there's really only so much disappointment and humiliation I can take in one summer.

I just hope they sort things out before the next test series.

Entrails by the roadside

Weirdest thing that happened this week was the appearance of random piles of entrails by the side of the road – specifically, the western side Portrush Road, near the intersection of it and Magill Road. Literally, just random piles of guts in intermittent intervals over a few hundred metres.

It's one of those very rare occasions where I actually wished I owned a mobile phone with a camera – not because I like photos of gross things (I don't) but just to put it into perspective.

As for why this happened, I had some fun speculating on Twitter and Facebook about what the source of said innards was; suggestions ranged from a poorly secured door on a home delivery service to soothsayers, to an overfilled haggis-ingredient truck.

The actual explanation – apparently – is that trucks taking offal to the abattoir use that road and sometimes stuff gets loose. Which is kind of scary when you think about it; it makes me very happy I don't drive a convertible...

West Side Story

Thursday night I went to see the touring production of West Side Story at the Festival Theatre with three friends from work.

It was a great production – the choreography in particular was excellent – though there were a few things about it I wasn't that impressed by: the guy playing Tony was a great singer, but but I felt lacked the intensity the character needs; the woman playing Maria was an even better singer, but sang in a far more operatic style than the other characters, which seemed a bit strange².

And I realised that, despite the quality of the performances, it's not really a show I like that much – that I didn't already know that might come as a surprise; however, the fact is that despite my heavy involvement in theatre, my experience has been overwhelmingly with plays rather than musicals, so there are a large number of well-known musicals I'm not that familiar with beyond the basic outline³.

So I do end up going to shows without knowing for sure whether or not I'm going to like them. Next unknown for me is going to be Wicked in April; I do, however, suspect – and hope, given that I've parted with 130 clams for the privilege – I'm going to like that more.

²This might, of course, be the way the part is written; while I have seen a production of the show before, it was something like six or seven years ago and I barely remember it; this may have something to do with the fact I saw it with my then-girlfriend, and whenever I break up with someone I tend to experience an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind procedure on myself and wipe everything that took place while we were together.
³Yes, this has an impact on my capacity as a reviewer; this is why I don't tend to review very many musicals. I only reviewed Oliver! last year because it's a show I've actually been in and I therefore felt I knew it well enough to provide a critique.

True Blood season three

Minor spoilers!

I got the time over the break to sit down and watch the third season of the campy vampire tv series True Blood; having watched the first two seasons (I wrote about season one here), it was really only a matter of time (and opportunity) before I got around to watching season three.

While I think the quality has dropped off a little since the first season, I still enjoyed it. Most of what works for the show is still there – fast-paced action, black comedy, cliffhanger endings, great quirky characters, buckets of blood and steamy human/supernatural (not just vampires but werewolves as well) romance.

In fact, I think I liked it more than season two – it was certainly more consistent; the 'Maryanne' subplot the was resolved in the last few episodes of season two wasn't especially entertaining.

Once again it's built up toward a set multi-character cliffhangers, and I know I'll be just as keen to watch the next season when it appears.

Tron: Legacy

2011-01-03T15:16:00.001+10:30

As soon as I heard it was finally being made, I knew I wanted to see Tron: Legacy. The original was one of very few films I saw at the cinema as a kid¹, and I remember being completely blown away by it.

Yesterday I got myself to the cinema to see it.

¹My parents weren't exactly cinema enthusiasts, and we lived too far away from my town's cinema for me to get there by myself.

Story

Spoilers ahoy.

Set in the present day and twenty-eight years after the Tron², Sam Flynn – son of Kevin Flynn, the main character from the original – is, like his father before him, sucked into The Grid, the world of anthropomorphised computer programs. There he's drawn into the conflict between his father and a rebel program.

²I'm guessing here – I don't recall seeing any specific dates in the film.

Visually spectacular

It's one of the best-looking films I've ever seen, probably second only to Avatar for pure big-screen visual awesomeness and attention to detail. The original 'glowing lines and circles' concept from the original is carried over to the sequel; every character in The Grid – the computer world – has a pattern on their clothing.

The 3D is used effectively, and far more for the depth effect than any 'things flying out from the screen at you'.

There are some amazing scenes – the light-cycle battle, and the End of the Line Club in particular. Really, it's so damn good I'd actually consider watching again at the cinema³, simply to try and take even more of it in.

³I've only ever seen one film more than once at the cinema by choice – the Baz Luhrmann Romeo + Juliet; I saw it three times.

Sonically awesome

French electronica outfit Daft Punk composed the soundtrack, and it's superb, a great combination of electronic and orchestral music. I'm don't usually pay that much attention to the score of a film, but in this I kept on looking forward to each new scene because I knew it'd mean a new piece of music.

I'm almost certainly going to buy the album. Oh, and the duo appear in the film as djs – hilariously, they even change the music when a fight starts – in the scene at the End of the Line Club, which features some great tracks.

Characters and performance

This is where it starts to fall down a bit. Garrett Hedlund's Sam Flynn is solid but nothing special; Jeff Bridges alternates between scenery-chewing large ham and a Buddhist version The Dude from The Big Lebowski⁴ as both the villain Clu and Kevin Flynn. On the plus side, Olivia Wilde is wide-eyed and quirky (and seriously hot; I love the hair) as Quorra;

Michael Sheen plays Castor, the program who 'owns' (if a program can be said to own something) The Bar at the End of the Line; it's an hilarious, hammy, campy performance that's equal parts David Bowie and Malcolm McDowell as Alex de Large in A Clockwork Orange.

⁴And weirdly reminiscent of Walter Bishop, the eccentric mad scientist from the television series Fringe.

Plot, themes and miscellany

This is where it drops even further. To say the story is formulaic and predictable is an understatement.

Then there's the problem that almost none of it makes any damn sense, at least not if you start thinking about it. A human is transformed, via a laser, into a form which allows him to enter a computer network. While in that network, he encounters and engages with computer programs who look and act (mostly) like humans – they watch sports, they go to bars, they suck up to their superiors, and they appear to experience pain and fear etc. – and then he is reconstituted back into human form, as is the program who accompanies him.

There are plenty of other strange and otherwise inexplicable scenes – when Sam Flynn is first outfitted in his games uniform features four women moving in synchronised, robotic fashion assisting him to do this, but this kind of inhuman articulation is never seen again on another character.

Thematically, they've decided to point out a few things people in power shouldn't, do – fascism and ethnic cleansing (Clu has his forces wipe out the ISOs, a different 'kind' of program) in particular.

They've digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges for both a flashback scene and for his performance as Clu, and despite how good the technology is, it's still a bit creepy – what TV Tropes refers to as the uncanny valley. But that kind of works for Clu, 'cause he's meant to be a digital representation anyway – except that he's the only one who looks like that; perhaps they could have done similar treatments on the other programs.

The obvious solution, of course, is to not think too much about it; just sit back and enjoy the ride.

It just...works

Despite the flaws noted above – things that would probably annoy me in other situations – I really enjoyed this, more than I enjoyed a film of a similar nature (i.e. great visuals but lacklustre story), Avatar. It looked – and sounded; I really can't stress enough how impressive the Daft Punk score was – so damn good that those flaws didn't significantly detract from my enjoyment of it.

Obviously, the influence of the original film could be seen in films like The Matrix, but the favour has most definitely returned as there's a very similar feel here, especially with the kind of pseudo-spiritual mysticism. There are also what seems like shout-outs to Star Wars (Kevin Flynn has a few Obi Wan Kenobi moments, and there are lightsaber-like devices), War Games (“The only way to win is not to play”) and – as already noted – The Big Lebowski.

So yeah, it's not original, well-scripted or provocative in any meaningful way. But as pure entertainment, it's one of the best films I've seen in a while.

Hello, 2011!

2011-01-01T17:38:00.000+10:30

Well, it's now 2011. And I'm looking forward to another year of doing what I do: work, theatre and other forms of amusement, and blogging.

Theatre

Big things on the theatre calendar include the 2011 Fringe festival – while the full details won't be out for another couple of weeks yet¹, some great acts have already indicated they'll be coming to town: Amanda Palmer and The Sound & the Fury being two I'll definitely be seeing; no doubt there'll be others of a similar pedigree – fingers crossed for Theater Simple, The Jane Austen Argument and whoever Guy Masterson finds to bring along – to add to that.

And there's plenty more theatre: The State Theatre Company of South Australia season – which I wrote about here – is something else I'm keenly anticipating. Next week I've got the professional production of West Side Story, and in May I'm seeing probably the most-anticipated musical of the last few years, Wicked.

There are a stack of amateur shows to see as well: Songs for a New World, Scenes from a Separation, Miss Saigon, The Mousetrap, Avenue Q, Othello and Sweeney Todd – and that's just those which have been announced; there are a bunch more still to be confirmed.

As for my direct involvement in theatre, I'm intending to audition for a couple of shows – Blithe Spirit up at Tea Tree Players (with whom I did Suddenly At Home last year) and, even more exciting, the Adelaide Uni Theatre Guild's production of Macbeth; then the plan is to stage manage the Theatre Guild's third – as yet officially unannounced – show for the year.

¹As soon as the guide comes out I'll be writing a post about what I think will be the must-see shows.

Music

I've also got tickets to a few musical acts throughout the year – the amazing Sufjan Stevens is in town in February, Tim Minchin is doing a gig with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in March (during, but not part of, the Fringe), Belle & Sebastian (who I've wanted to see for years) are here the week after the Fringe finishes, and then a couple of months after that Ben Folds is playing at the Entertainment Centre theatre.

And no doubt there'll be more. Darren Hanlon has already hinted at a tour, which I'll definitely be in for if I'm not otherwise occupied.

Film

Lots of movies coming out this year. A couple are already out but which I haven't yet seen: Tron: Legacy, The King's Speech, Black Swan and True Grit; then there are the 'proper' 2011 releases, top of the list for me being part two of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm also keen to see Thor, X-Men: First Class, Cowboys & Aliens, The Wolverine², Sherlock Holmes 2, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo³, Tintin⁴, The Cabin in the Woods⁵ and the remake of Fright Night, almost entirely because it's got David Tennant in it.

²Yeah, I know the first one sucked, but Darren Aronofsky's directing this one, which gives it potential.
³I don't always approve of American remakes of non-American films, but – like Wolverine above – the director makes a difference; David Fincher's on board to helm this.
⁴Some of you will already know this, but others won't; my nickname for many years was Tintin, 'cause someone thought I looked like him – and I can kind of see it. Hence why I'm vaguely disturbed that two of my friends have named their beagle puppy that.
⁵It's Joss Whedon's take on the classic horror flick. How could I not?

Blogging

Obviously, I intend to keep blogging; while I got more consistent this year, I still don't think I was posting anywhere near as often as I should have been. So, I'm going to keep at it and – all things going well – will provide a regular supply of snarky, self-indulgent rambling throughout the year⁶.

⁶Except during the Fringe; I'll almost certainly be way too busy.

Travel

In August I'm hoping to get up to south-east Queensland to visit my family who are spread out between the Sunshine Coast and Hervey Bay. My mother and her husband Graeme were in Adelaide last year, but I haven't see the rest of the clan – my sister Leanne, her husband David and my nephew Dustin; and my brother Jeff and my nieces Lucie and Julia – for quite a few years.

The plan is to fly to Brisbane and drive up from there and stop off to see people along the way; I can then fly back to Adelaide (via Melbourne or Sydney) from the airport in Hervey Bay.

Miscellaneous

I've got a wedding to go to – that of my friends Kellie and Damien – and no doubt a whole bunch of other parties, soirees, shindigs and hootenannies to attend.

Depending on whether or not I get into the plays I intend to audition for, and if I can get myself organised to do so, I'd still like to enrol in a French course with Alliance Francaise, as I've alluded to a couple of times in blog posts past.

I may get myself enthusiastic about the renovating I should have started doing when I first moved in over three years ago, but my biggest problem is that I've got a bunch of things to do – new kitchen, plastering, paint, carpets and landscaping – and no damn idea a) how to do most of it, and b) where the heck to start.

Will be trying to spend more time reading as well – I'm currently about halfway through The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and have the other two of the Millennium trilogy to read once I'm through with that.

No doubt there'll be more going on – and you can guarantee when there is, I'll be writing about it.

Losing the Ashes

2010-12-30T15:27:00.000+10:30

To provide some context: while I watch tennis when it's on, will occasionally check the internet to see how Tottenham Hotspur are doing in the English Premier League, and keep an eye on how Saint Kilda are doing in the AFL, cricket – test cricket in particular – is the only sport I really follow, in the sense that I spend a lot of time not only watching it, but also reading about it and talking about it with other people.

I've played cricket¹, so I've got a good understanding of how it all works – and, given just how esoteric the minutiae of the game is², this is quite significant. I remember most of the terms for field positions, batting strokes and bowling techniques and, having spent a decent part of most of the last thirty or so summers watching the coverage on television, I've observed the ups and downs of the Australian team.

Some of my fondest memories of my uni days in Queensland are of watching cricket on tv with my friends and flatmates. Best of all was the one night when a couple of us 'borrowed' the projector from the residential college at which we lived and took it to use in the lounge room of some friends who had a share house; this was during the '95 tour of the West Indies when Australia won the Frank Worrell trophy there for the first time – heck, we even had a couple of bottles of sparkling–like wine with which to celebrate.

I've seen cricket played at three of the major grounds – the 'Gabba in Brisbane, the Adelaide Oval and the Melbourne Cricket Ground³ – and have started making going to at least one day of the Adelaide test match each year a regular occurrence.

So yeah, I take my cricket fairly seriously.

And the Ashes – the regular series between England and Australia, played in alternate countries every two years or so – is the ultimate contest in cricket; the rivalry that began over a hundred years ago has most definitely not diminished over that time.

The last Ashes series, which took place in England in 2009, resulted in a 2-1 series win for England. Yesterday Australia lost the fourth test in Melbourne; even if we win the fifth test in Sydney, the series will be 2-2 – and that means England retain the title.

¹I'm not entirely untalented, either – I even won a Best & Fairest award for my club as a junior.
²If this hadn't been abundantly clear before, it certainly got hammered home when I tried, while slightly stoned, to explain how it all to two equally stoned Israelis one night while fruit picking in Victoria's Goulburn Valley.
³Better know as the MCG, or just 'The G'.

Started well, became wretched, flickered briefly, died completely

Brisbane

We had a great couple of days in Brisbane, bowling England out for 260 – Siddle took 6/54, including a hat-trick⁴ – and in reply we made 481, a lead of 221. But the English batting in the second innings made our bowlers look hapless; they ended up declaring at 1/517, giving us 297 to chase in less than a day – and it ended up a draw.

While we didn't lose, that we were only able to take one English second innings wicket didn't bode well for the rest of the series.

⁴Three wickets in three consecutive balls. If that doesn't help, go here.

Adelaide

The second test in Adelaide started about as horribly as any test match in history for Australia; that I was actually there at the ground to watch us collapse to be 3/2 in the first half-hour and eventually go on to be all out for 245 just before stumps was a bit painful⁵. England would go on to make 620, setting Australia 375 just to catch up; despite the forecast for heavy showers and the chance for a draw, we fell 71 runs short without England even having to bat again – a huge loss.

It was now 1-0 in England's favour, and it really wasn't looking good for Australia.

⁵It was still a fun day, though. The Barmy Army – the touring English fans who attend in the tens of thousands – are very entertaining, and all the ribbing we got was good-humoured.

Perth

After the absolute cornholing⁶ we'd suffered in Adelaide, some changes were made to the team: Phil Hughes was brought in to replace the injured Simon Katich; Mitchell Johnson replaced Doug Bollinger; and Steve Smith came in for the underperforming Marcus North.

England won the toss and opted to field, which proved to be a good decision as we once again collapsed for a low total, this time 268. But unlike in the second innings in Brisbane, or the first in Adelaide, we bowled well; Mitchell Johnson led the charge with 6/38 and England were bowled out for 187.

While we didn't bat exceptionally well – Hughes, Ponting and Clarke all got low scores – we got to 307, setting England 391 to win. But our bowlers continued the good form they'd shown in the first innings – this time it was Ryan Harris doing the damage with 6/47 – and England crumbled to be all out for 123; we'd won by 267 runs.

Opinions were mixed; had Australia found form at the right time, or had England, having had such an easy win, gotten overconfident and taken their foot of the pedal?

⁶Not by any means a cricket-specific term.

Melbourne

The win in Perth had given the team some much-needed confidence – but it didn't last very long at all; once again we collapsed, and this time for one of our lowest completed-innings scores in test cricket history: 98.

We might have been able to salvage the game if we bowled well, but we were unable to replicate our performance in Perth, and England were able to make 513 – a massive lead of 415 runs. Again, there was a chance that the match could be saved if we could just bat through, but yet another collapse – at one point we were 7-172 – meant that that wasn't going to happen.

Siddle and Haddin gave it a go with an 86-run partnership, but we eventually fell to be all out for 258, and the game – and therefore the Ashes – were England's.

What now?

I wish I knew. Obviously, the choice is between dropping those who haven't been performing, or sticking with them and hoping they get through it. The former, though, would cause some serious problems for the team hierarchy since both Ricky Ponting (captain) and Michael Clarke (vice-captain) are the two who've struggled the most this summer.

To my knowledge, no Australian captain has been dropped from the test side – or from the captaincy (i.e. they're still in the side but no longer captain) – in recent times at least. Mark Taylor remained captain despite a very poor run – averaging less than 30 with the bat in both 1996 and 1997.

He, however, hadn't lost three out of four Ashes series.

I don't follow the state competition – which provides the pool from which the test cricketers are drawn – anymore, so I don't know whether there are any obvious choices the selectors can look at for inclusion in the squad. But there are no doubt a few players who might now be keeping their mobile phones a little closer to hand than they would have a couple of weeks ago.

What's also helpful is that, once the Sydney test is finished, we don't play test cricket again until the tour of Sri Lanka, scheduled to be sometime in mid-2011 – so we've got the rest of the summer of domestic cricket to see who's showing potential.

Fingers crossed the selectors will be able to put together a better, more cohesive team than the one we've got now – and, most importantly, will be able to challenge England in the next Ashes series in 2013.

Movie review: Love and Other Drugs

2010-12-27T14:40:00.002+10:30

I'm not usually a fan of romantic comedies, but this was one I'd decided I wanted to see – mostly because of my aforementioned fondness for Anne Hathaway.

Oh, and I'm going to talk about the plot – so consider this a spoiler alert.

Not really a romantic comedy

Now, I alluded to it being a romantic comedy and, based on the preview I'd seen, that's what I thought it was going to be. But, as TV Tropes tells us, trailers often lie; while it's being marketed as a romantic comedy, there's a more serious aspect to it.

A formula that doesn't quite work

What I'd interpreted from the preview was that the two lead characters were rival drug reps who started a casual relationship which then turned serious for the guy but not the girl – something along the lines of (500) Days of Summer.

Not so. While that is technically true, it's the reason why that's more important – Anne Hathaway's character has early-onset Parkinson's Disease, and because of this she doesn't want to get into a long-term relationship.

So yeah, the parts where it's not a romantic comedy aren't just slightly more serious compared to the comedic moments; they're flat-out bleak. And the combination – in the way it was done I mean; obviously, the mixing of comedy and drama is done all the time¹ – just didn't quite sit right.

Well, for me at least.

That wasn't the only flaw; the rest of the script isn't that great either. The subplot characters – Jamie's brother Josh (Josh Gad) who's been kicked out by his wife and, despite being a millionaire (he just took his IT company public), is living on Jamie's couch; Dr Knight (Hank Azaria), a friend of Jamie's; Bruce (Oliver Platt), Jamie's co-worker – are barely touched on, to the point where when certain revelations occur, it seems to have come about with any foreshadowing.

Jamie and Josh's parents are shown in the beginning but, apart from one phone call Jamie makes to his mother, are never heard from again.

¹Once again I'll send you to TV Tropes for some elaboration – see here.

However...

There are good performances – Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Gad as his manchild brother Josh, Hank Azaria and the always-impressive Oliver Platt – and one brilliant performance from Anne Hathaway. Hers is by the far the most developed character, and this gives her a lot more to work with. And she does an amazing job.

The naked elephant in the room

The first things I heard about this film is that a) it reunited Brokeback Mountain co-stars Gyllenhaal and Hathaway; b) just like in that film, it would involve the two having sex; and c) the film would feature quite a bit of that.

Of course I – a straight male on the record as considering Anne Hathaway to be one of the most attractive women in the world – have to admit that that didn't exactly make me not want to see it.

These rumours turned out to be entirely true; Hathaway and Gyllenhaal both spend significant screen time sans clothing. But it's completely in context – in the sense that it's an illustration of the kind of relationship (i.e. mostly sexual) the two are engaging in – and doesn't seem done simply for the sake of it².

²A good example of where it was unnecessary was Halle Berry's topless scene in Swordfish.

So...

I enjoyed it, but it's by no means brilliant. It's very funny in parts and the performances – Hathaway's in particular – are good. But I felt that the imbalance of drama and comedy, and the weakness of the subplots undermined the overall experience.

Happy belated birthday, blog

2010-12-26T14:41:00.001+10:30

Yesterday (December 25) was my blog's second birthday – which is just a little scary; it certainly doesn't feel like I've been putting my thoughts out there on teh interwebs for that long.

But I'm still enjoying it, and have no plans to stop anytime soon – quite the opposite, actually; I'm really hoping I can increase the frequency of my posts.

Of course, what I'd love is to see an increase in the number of pageviews, and more comments from people – so, if you do have something to say in response to something I've written, please feel free to say so; and if you think other people might enjoy reading it, use the buttons down below to share on Facebook and Twitter.

Anyway, I've got a couple of new posts in the pipeline and will – all things going to plan - have them up in the next few days.

Les Misérables (the book)

2010-12-18T09:54:00.002+10:30

On my last trip to the library¹ I found myself in the 'classics' section where I spotted a paperback copy of Les Misérables. I'd gone through the previous haul of books fairly quickly, at least in part to make up for the book-drought imposed during my rehearsal period for Suddenly At Home (as described here) and it occurred to me that I should borrow it, if for no other reason than I had the time.

Despite its literary significance — it's one of those books that always shows up on 'best of', 'most significant' and 'must read before you die under the wheels of a runaway stagecoach' lists — I'd never read it before. In fact, I don't think I'd even seen a copy of it before; while I'm sure a few people I know must own it, I've never noticed it in anyone's bookshelves.

I knew some of the story — between the number of references in pop culture, and having seen a brilliant production of the musical by Adelaide's Gilbert & Sullivan Society a few years back — but, considering the book is nearly 1200 pages long, with 130 or so more pages of notes², there's obviously a lot more to it.

The length was daunting — even for me, whose shelves³ groan under the weight of such tomes as Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susannah Clarke; The Lord of The Rings⁴; Magician, by Raymond Feist; IT, by Stephen King; the Asia novels of James Clavell, and the fattest of the Harry Potter series.

Why read it? Well, it is — as I mentioned — a very highly regarded work. Then there's the fact that it's not only great literature, but great French literature. And I'm becoming more and more interested in all things Français, since — as I noted in my post on tattoos — I've got not-too-distant French ancestry.

So, with that in mind, I heaved it off the shelf. Now, over a month of reading later, I've finally finished it.

¹The St Peters branch of the SWAP library network to be precise.
²And, unless you've been educated in Classics (i.e. Greek and Roman history, mythology, philosophy and so forth), Latin, French history and world literature, you're going to need to read most of these. I did, and I've probably got a better than average knowledge of such things.
³Actually, most of my books are in boxes. But boxes don't groan, and I like to be evocative.
⁴I shouldn't have to tell you who that's by.

Slow-going

Like I said, over a month. It has never taken me this long to read a book. Ever. And I've read a lot of books. But it's just so damn dense, and the notes so frequent; the flipping back and forth made the going even slower.

Half action, half...other stuff

There are huge chunks devoted to describing events the occur during, and prior to, the period of 1815-1832 when the novel is set — which, of course, includes the first French Revolution (the one with Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the frequent use of M. Guillotine's most notable invention); and the rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte — and listing significant real-life people and their achievements. There's an astonishing amount of information on the characters — even the minor ones — and fine detail about things like geography, politics and the history of the Paris sewer system.

But it's all relevant⁵ in context, since one of the major themes of the story seems to be that people are, to an extent, a product of their environment, with the subsequent implication being that how the characters deal with the events surrounding them is a result of the combination of their being a product of France's — and, in particular, Paris's — history, political climate and culture.

And since it all takes place amongst actual historical events, there's a certain amount of truth to it.

But it's not entirely objective; Hugo engages in significant social commentary throughout — at times it seems that the events of the story are simply a vehicle for Hugo to paint a picture of a nation and a people in turmoil, and combine that with a cast of characters who demonstrate the astonishing breadth of human complexity.

⁵Well, up to a point; I have to admit he could probably have conveyed all the same information just a bit more succinctly.

The translation

One of the things I didn't like was the translation. A lot of the word choices seem strange, sometimes even to the point of undermining the power of the scene —I'd felt this at a low level throughout, but it really came to a head when a character used the word 'baloney' to mean nonsense. Why 'baloney'? It's a very American term, and seemed — to me — a very poor choice. And it only got worse after that; prison is referred to as 'the clink', children as 'nippers' — a term I truly despise — and a whole bunch more I shudder to think about.

I'd like to get hold of an untranslated version and see what it is in the original French. While I don't actually speak French⁶, it's not as if there aren't plenty of translators on the internet⁷.

What bothers me more, though, is that this seems to be a common trait in modern translations of classic novels. Part of what made me struggle with Don Quixote was the 'feel' of the text; the attempt at a contemporary tone meant it didn't read like something written five hundred years ago and instead came across as something akin to listening to you parents trying to do karaoke hip-hop.

⁶Yet. Part of the 'embracing my heritage' thing includes learning French, though I don't know when that's going to happen; theatre always seems to get in the way.
⁷My preferred choice is Alta Vista Babel Fish, which I of course use in honour of the late, great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

The story

Honestly, there's really no way to explain exactly what happens — at least, not to my satisfaction, and without giving too much away. But it involves a man — Jean Valjean — who is seeking redemption, and those whose lives become intertwined with his — chiefly Fantine, Cosette, Inspector Javert, the Thenardiers and Marius.

Oh, and about a thousand other random people, some of whom get a more detailed backstory than the main characters of many other books.

It culminates in an actual historical event, the June Rebellion, where there was rioting and fighting between anti-monarchists and the police/military; it's where the famous barricades become particularly important.

One of the slightly irritating things about it, though, is that, like those of his English contemporary Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist being a good example), the story relies on astonishing coincidence after astonishing coincidence. That certain peoples' paths can cross — multiple times — in a city the size of Paris (population somewhere around 650 000 in 1832) is really pushing a reasonable suspension of disbelief.

Characters

What isn't social commentary is character study. Most of the characters are very complex and, given the number of pages Hugo uses in documenting every last damn thought in their heads, you're never left to guess at what their motivations might be.

His 'good' characters are good people, but still have enough flaws to avoid Mary Sue territory⁸. The 'bad' characters (though, for some, it's not really that's black and white) aren't, for the most part, as complex — though that can, to some extent, be attributed to the fact that more of the story is told from the 'good' characters' perspective.

Hugo does a great job with the Thenardiers, who are two of the vilest characters in fiction⁹ — something that's not quite as evident in the musical, partly because there isn't as much time devoted to demonstrating their depravity, and perhaps because, in that adaptation, they get to sing the lively and fun Master of the House¹⁰.

Cosette, though, gets very little development, which seems somewhat odd given the amount of time Hugo devoted to the other characters.

⁸An unrealistic character with few flaws; see the TV Tropes page on the topic. Or read/see any of the Twilight stories...
⁹I consider the gold standard to be Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. I've rarely hated someone as much as I hated her, which I think is a testament to JK Rowling's ability as a writer.
¹⁰Pipe down, chorus boy.

History and culture

Waterloo

There's a huge chunk of the book devoted to describing the events of Waterloo, but — not unexpectedly — from the French perspective rather than the English¹¹. Since it's something all of the few people I've spoken to about it have mentioned, it's not like I didn't expect it; what I didn't expect, though, was that I found it extremely informative — to the point where I'm keen to read more about the event¹².

¹¹Or, to be technically correct, the allied countries known as the Seventh Coalition — I knew it wasn't just England, but wasn't sure exactly who else was involved.
¹²Unfortunately, that means it goes on the end of a very long list of things I want to read. I still haven't read anything about Orson Welles yet, and I jumped on that particular bandwagon several months ago.

Paris

While it isn't exactly a surprise, I wasn't quite prepared for just how much Hugo — and, by extension, the French people in general — adores Paris. To him there's no question; it's the greatest city in the modern world, and the spiritual heir to the great cities of antiquity — particularly Athens.

A nation of philanderers

Hugo goes into a lot of detail describing the habits of the French aristocracy — and can barely write a sentence without mentioning someone's mistress, bastard child or illicit lover(s). I mean, the French do have a reputation¹³ for being amorous, but still.

However, he's included it as the reporting of fact rather than the passing of judgement, and it's extremely important for painting a picture of the culture in which the events take place — as well as, in some cases — establishing character.

¹³To wit: in an episode of Blackadder I watched recently, Prince George remarked that he was '...as happy as a Frenchman who's just invented a pair of self-removing trousers'.

Religion

While Hugo doesn't come across as an atheist, he clearly has little fondness for many aspects of the Catholic Church — particularly the asceticism of the monastic aspects. He likens the lives of nuns and monks to those of convicted criminals sentence to hard labour — and, in Hugo's time, hard labour was very hard indeed.

However, he does believe in the power of religion to bring out the good in people.

Themes

Yeah, it's got themes coming out the derrière — Valjean's determination to stay true to his principles, and honour his promises, and Marius and his student friends' devotion to their cause being the most prominent.

It's not all 'good triumphs over evil' though; several characters who do good things do come to unpleasant ends – though this can be seen as redemptive — and several nasty characters get through it all without any kind of comeuppance.

The importance of love and compassion feature heavily; Hugo, after all, is considered a key figure in the Romantic movement in art and literature.

A lot of the thematic elements tie in with the social commentary; the harsh treatment of petty criminals by the French justice system, for example, and how a minor infraction could ruin the lives of not only the person who committed the crime, but their whole family.

So...

Well, I'm certainly glad I spent all that time reading it; it's an amazing work and, apart from anything else, I learned a great deal about France, its people and its history. It's something I think anyone who's interested in literature should read, but — given its sluggish pace, length and density — I don't really blame anyone for not wanting to spend that much time wading through it.

So, if you're up to it, I say give it a shot. Just be prepared to put in some serious time and effort.

Thinking about Inking

2010-12-11T23:16:00.002+10:30

So, recently I've been contemplating getting a tattoo.

Wait, what?

I'm serious — a tattoo. No, not the midget from Fantasy Island, or the thing in Edinburgh where people come from around the world to share their inexplicable fondness for marching in formation while ~~inflicting~~ playing (chiefly) bagpipe music¹.

Yeah, I admit it's not exactly something I ever expected to be contemplating, given that I'm kind of past what I assume is the average age of a person who gets their first tattoo.

¹Incidentally, some friends of mine from Adelaide went with a local pipe band a few years back and one of them ended up featuring quite prominently in the footage they shot.

Not an about—face, per se

It's not like I went to bed being against tattoos and woke up to find myself wanting one; I had thought about before, albeit quite a few years ago. But, despite it being something I was completely okay with – in principle – I never reached the point where I'd made up my mind about exactly what it was I wanted permanently etched into my skin.

This may be a good thing; I've made some silly decisions in my time, and to have chosen something I would eventually have grown to regret would have been a problem, given that the options are either live with it or have it lasered off.

And I'm well-aware of the unpleasantness of the latter option; my ex-flatmate Sebastian the French-Canadian chiropractor² had had some tattoos and then decided to have them removed, and once a month (or so) would come home in serious pain and, within a few days, would have gross gunk oozing from underneath the bandages.

²I really need to do a blog post on that guy. Fascinating character.

Precedent – well, sort of

My family is split on the issue — at least in terms of having chosen to get tattoos. My father has several, and does my half-sister Leanne; my mother and my half-brother Jeff, though, don't. My late half-brother Louis may have had tattoos — despite the fact I barely knew him, what I know about him suggests it's not something he'd have had a problem with — but it's not like I can ask him.

Despite the fact my mother cohabited³ with a man with tattoos — possibly even more than one; while her current husband doesn't have any, her first husband John did as well — I have a sneaking suspicion she'd probably disapprove, even though she mightn't say so. My brother would almost certainly disapprove, but since I've spent most of my life doing things he disapproves of⁴, that's not really much of shock.

Not that any of this will have any impact on my decision, of course. It's been a very long time since parental — or, for that matter, fraternal — disapproval has served as any kind of stumbling block for me.

³She didn't marry him, though. Yeah, that's right — I'm a bastard. In both senses of the word.
⁴At one point several years back when I was looking for a job he asked me why I hadn't tried the military or the police, and I — more than a little shocked — responded with, 'have you met me?”

But why, exactly?

I'm not thinking about getting a tattoo (or, potentially, tattoos) for the sake of getting one; it ties in with the recent increase in interest in my heritage — and I've realised it's something I'd like to acknowledge in some way.

And I thought to myself: why not tattoos?

A one-man melting pot

I guess I should probably explain: despite looking like your average, everyday pasty white guy on the outside, I'm somewhat more exotic underneath — apart from the fairly predictable English and Irish, I've also got African⁴, French⁵ and American⁶.

Not that you could tell from looking at me, though the combination might explain the weird bone structure — or lack thereof — of my face; sadly, I'm no Wentworth Miller⁷.

⁴I know 'African' isn't very specific, but considering the circumstances; my ancestor — an illiterate, mixed-race, French-speaking convict named Louis Marcelin — didn't provide much information when sentenced to transportation from Mauritius the early 19th century equivalent of receiving stolen goods.
⁵The assumption, given that Grandpère Louis spoke French, is that his white ancestor was French — though I guess Belgian is also a possibility.
⁶Again, not really a ethnicity as such; to be an American with my surname (that's actually where the Wright comes from) means almost certainly being some kind of white European — but we've got no records on what, exactly, that ancestry was — or how far removed my ex-pat US citizen ancestor was from it. So I'm counting it as its own.
⁷He of Prison Break fame; you can read about his complicated lineage on his Wikipedia page.

That makes five

Which means I've got five concepts I want to represent. But how, exactly?

At first I thought about trying to put all the elements together into one — like a coat-of-arms. But with five different countries/ethnicities to display, and wanting to give each equal prominence, it'd need to be big — far bigger than I'd really want to have, for reasons I'll discuss later.

So, it'd have to be five individual tattooos.

Some difficult choices

Obviously, there are a lot of ways to represent a country — flags, animals, flowers/plants and so forth.

When I was trying to choose things for the coat-of-arms, I had some idea — a Bald Eagle for the USA, a bulldog for England, le drapeau tricolor (the French flag) for France (duh), a lion for Africa and a shamrock for Ireland.

But that didn't work — like I said, I wanted to give each equal significance, and the shamrock just doesn't carry as much weight as either the animals or the flag.

So, what else is there on the list of iconic Irish symbols that I'd be happy with? The shamrock is okay when not held up against other things, but I wanted to consider some other options; the first that came to mind was a leprechaun, but that's a bit cartoonish for my taste.

There are, of course, any number of Celtic designs, and I do like the style, but I've never seen a specific one that I've been that entranced by. But then I remembered something I'd actually considered the first time I ever thought about getting a tattoo: the Irish harp (courtesy of HistoryImages.com):

Not only is it elegant, musical and wholly Irish, it's also the symbol for Guinness, which I'm also somewhat partial to from time to time — and what had driven me to consider it in the past, given that at that time I had no idea about my Irish ancestry.

The bulldog stays — apart from anything else it's my favourite breed of dog — though the more I think about it, the more I realise I'd like to have the Union Jack to go with it⁸.

France's animal symbol is, somewhat hilariously given their military reputation, a chicken — okay, it's actually a rooster, le coq gaulois — but that doesn't appeal to me all that much.

There's also the fleur-de-lis:

Of course, anyone who knows their history — or has seen the 1993 film version of The Three Musketeers⁹ — knows that the fleur-de-lis was tattooed on the shoulders of criminals condemned to death. But, as cool as that is, I'm really fond of the French flag, though, and since the only other thing I could think of that captures what I'm going for is a guillotine, it looks like le drapeau tricolor is the way to go.

Then there's the lion, an animal of which I'm not especially fond¹⁰ — and which also can be found outside of Africa, albeit in very small numbers. So the lion was out, too; I had to think of something else.

And then it hit me: a giraffe¹¹. This was so much better than a lion on several levels because — a) it's a wholly African creature, b) they look awesome, c) it's one of my most favourite creatures in the world, and d) I'm fairly sure there aren't that many giraffe tattoos out there, and I like the idea of having something relatively uncommon.

The Bald Eagle stays, too. Again, the other options — the Stars & Stripes, for example — don't inspire me anywhere near as much. So that's easy.

⁸Weirdly enough, this is also one of the tattoos my father has; while my relationship with him can only be described as distant, there's still a part of me that's happy that we might end up sharing that.
⁹It's not great. But the villains are played by Tim Curry and Michael Wincott, which is something.
¹⁰I don't really know why. I like most of the other big cats.
¹¹Not literally.

Location, location, location

So, I've got five tattoos in mind — the next question is where do I put them?

One concern I do have about such body art is that I've got my theatre to think about; there are plenty of roles out there that having a visible tattoo might affect my chances of getting. So my choices are somewhat limited in that regard – anything below the elbow or above the collar, for example.

Fortunately — or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it — I don't tend to get cast in roles where I have to take of my shirt or pants¹².

The back, then, is the logical choice. But there's a problem — moles. I have lots. Lots and lots. Heck, I've probably got more moles than a Wind in the Willows-themed cosplay event. So that makes large sections of my back unavailable for tattooing.

But I've got a few places on my back that are free; add to that my uppers arms, both my shoulders and my shoulder-blades and I should be fine.

¹²If for no other reason than that much luminescence (being that I'm so white and all) throws out the lighting.

Next step(s)

I've now got to work out what's going to go where, which one I'm going to get first, and which tattoo place I'm going to go to.

The first two decisions are going to take a bit of thought; the third, on the other hand, is going to take some consultation with those people I know who have their own tattoos. But there are plenty of those, so that's probably going to be the easiest decision — unless, of course, they each recommend a different studio.

Now, though, I've just got to decide which first and where. At this point my Francophilia — at an all time high thanks to the fact I'm about three-quarters of the way through Les Misérables — is leading me to favour honouring my French ancestry first.

I will, of course, keep you all updated on how it goes. Heck, I'll even take pictures.

Movie review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)

2010-12-07T17:52:00.000+10:30

My trend of doing movie reviews appears to continue; this week's review is of the first part of the final chapter of the Harry Potter series.

If you don't already know...

Then you've been living in a cave, or are an alien spy who hasn't done the research.

The last in the series of seven books in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows covers the last battle between the young wizard Harry Potter, and his mortal enemy, the dark wizard Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents when he was a baby and who's been trying to kill him ever since.

At this point in the story, Harry and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, have abandoned their final year studies at Hogwart's — the school for witchcraft and wizardry — in order to seek out and destroy the Horcruxes, the vessels Voldemort has used to house the pieces of his fragmented soul¹, while attempting to avoid capture by their enemies, who've all-but taken over the wizarding world.

¹Yeah, it's a very long story. But worth reading if you haven't already.

3D-nied

When the first trailers appeared, the film was advertised as being in 3D; however, as the opening day grew closer, there was no more mention of the extra dimension. Turns out they ran out of time in the conversion process, and when given the choice to delay the opening or go with 2D they (sensibly²) chose the latter.

But there were quite a few scenes that'd been shot with 3D in mind, including the Warner Brothers logo at the beginning.

²While I'm a fan of 3D when used well, I'm a bit dubious of it when tacked on as an afterthought, i.e. if not shot using 3D technology from the start; what I heard happened with Clash of the Titans³ is a testament to how things can go wrong.
³Heard, because I didn't see it; from what I read it wasn't something I believe I'd have liked, not the least because of Sam 'more wooden than my dining table' Worthington.

A change of pace

It's a slower film than the others, which've been far more action focused. This is how the book is written and, thanks to the decision to make it into two films rather than one, they were able to stay true to the original plot.

But that's not to say it's bereft of action – it's not; there are plenty of action scenes, and they work well.

Sticking with the formula

What's made the Harry Potter series work is that, while they've had to drop huge chunks of the stories — especially from book number four, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, onwards; that's when they started getting really big – they've retained the key elements such as the humour, the relationships between the characters, and the underlying themes.

This one's no different.

Where it falls down

In staying true to the book, though, it faces the same problems as the book, which is mostly to do with the inconsistent behaviour of characters — for example, at one point the main trio are prepared to stand up to the strongest of the evil wizards; moments later they're running like startled rabbits from a bunch of scruffy-looking goons who look barely able to hold a wand straight.

Then there's how the children manage to outwit the adults, a phenomenon the inimitable TV Tropes refers to — much better than I'm able to — as Adults are Useless.

Then there's the fact that no-one seems to know what Harry Potter's two best friends — without whom he's almost never seen — look like. I mean, c'mon.

The animation

There's a segment, kind of a story within the story; it describes the Deathly Hallows of the title — and it's animated. But it's exceptionally well-done. Not easy to describe, though — it's like a combination of shadow-puppets and something out of the part of Neil Gaiman's brain that even he doesn't like to spend much time in. Dark, creepy and totally mesmerising.

A good build-up to what should (presumably) be a big finish

What doing what they've done with the first part allows them to do with the second is allow it to be far more action focused⁴. And despite the relatively sluggish pace, the momentum does increase toward the end, and includes a couple of significant scenes to step up the tension.

It's a smart move, and if it goes as I'd like to think it will, it's going to be one kickass finale. Really, the only bad thing about it is that I've now got to wait eight months for it to come out.

⁴By which I mean a significant part of it being a honking massive battle between two armies of wizards, with the special effects budget bigger than the GDP of far too many countries.

Movie review: Winter's Bone

2010-12-01T18:29:00.000+10:30

I saw Winter's Bone last week, and it's definitely a film worth writing about.

The plot

Set in a tiny town in the mountainous region of Missouri known as the Ozarks, it's the story of Ree Dolly, who's 17 and, since her father – who has the dubious honour of being the community's most talented meth cooker - disappeared a few months back and her mother is almost completely incapacitated by depression, is the one looking after herself and her two younger siblings.

When the local sheriff arrives to warn Ree that her father's court date is due and that, because he used the value of their house to cover his bail bond, if he doesn't show they'll lose the house. So she sets out to find him – a decision that takes her into the complex, dangerous world of the area's criminal element.

However, it's not a plot-heavy film – but, like any good film that's not explicitly story-driven, it more than makes up for it in other ways.

Visually stunning

A lot of the screen time is devoted to shots of the countryside, and it's a captivating mix of stark natural beauty and the detritus left by people the wrong side of the poverty line. Ramshackle houses and junked cars are framed by high mountains and thick dense forests. As you might guess from how it sounds, it's by no means pretty – but there's a poignant beauty to it nonetheless.

Brilliant performances

Jennifer Lawrence, who I've never seen in anything before. is utterly brilliant as Ree; there is barely a scene she isn't in, and she plays the tough, yet vulnerable, teenager with complete believability. It should be a breakthrough role for her and I know I'll be surprised if she doesn't go on to do a lot more¹.

John Hawkes plays Teardrop, and even though I'd seen some excellent work from him in Deadwood and Lost, this makes those performances looked phoned in. The intensity just pours out of him.

Garrett Dillahunt makes yet another appearance in something I've liked a great deal² - and something thematically and aesthetically similar to two of those, the Cormac McCarthy (more on him later) adaptations The Road and No Country for Old Men. He once again does a great job as the sheriff.

One of the biggest surprises for me was the strength of the performance by Dale Dickey, who I'd only ever remember seeing play Patty ('the daytime hooker') in My Name Is Earl. Here she plays a tough-as-nails local matriarch with chilling intensity.

¹IMDB tells me she's playing Mystique in the new X-Men prequel film – which is yet another reason to see it.
²I mentioned him in my recent post on Deadwood.

Music

Traditional Ozark music runs through the whole film, and adds yet another layer to the experience. At one point the characters visit a house where some people are 'jamming', and it's quite mesmerising.

Social commentary

Above everything is the fact that the film is a snapshot of a culture rarely presented in any kind of media. It's set in the present day, but the way the people act would, in many ways, be identical to how they acted a hundred, or even two hundred years ago. Outsiders are shunned, and they make their own rules; the law and the government are minor stumbling blocks. It's a tough life, and one that breeds tough people; these drug-dealing hillbillies are far more Deliverance than they are Cletus and Brandine or Jed, Jethro, Ellie-May and Granny.

Overall

As noted, it's a film about people who live – by my own personal standards at least – bleak and awful lives. But they still manage to find things to cling to, reasons to keep from going under. And that's what gives the film its balance – a sense of hope. It's subtle, but it's significant. It's something the writer Annie Proulx³ does exceptionally well, albeit with stories set in different regions of rural America.

That alone, though, wouldn't make a truly great film; however, there's also a great undercurrent of tension, a threat of imminent violence that's a hallmark of another great American writer who deals with tough people in harsh situations: the aforementioned Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road and No Country for Old Men – two films based on his works that I kept on thinking of while watching.

So yeah, it's pretty kickass⁴. It also won a Grand Jury prize at Sundance, which is no mean feat. So, if it sounds like the sort of thing you'd like, get out there and see it. Adelaideans, it's still on (at the time of writing) at Palace in the city.

³A Pulitzer and National Book Award winner. She wrote the short story that became Brokeback Mountain; other books include Accordion Crimes, The Shipping News (also a film), Postcards and That Old Ace in the Hole.
⁴Don't ask me what the title means, though. It's never explained.

The new tv

2010-11-28T12:59:00.004+10:30

I bought a new television this week. It's something I've been meaning to do for months, but for assorted not-particularly-good reasons, hadn't managed to get around to doing.

Part of this was because I was still quite happy with my old tv, a 59cm Sony CRT I'd bought just after moving to Adelaide around 13 years ago. It was still working fine, had great picture quality – it was one of the best tvs around when I bought it; it cost nearly $1000 back in 1998 – so I wasn't in that much of a hurry to replace it.

However, on Sunday afternoon, I must have switched to the menu screen of my dvr and sat down at the pc to do some browsing¹; when I got up and went back to the the lounge, I was surprised to find that the tv was off and the orange surge light² on the powerboard it was connected to was a different colour than usual.

After unplugging and replugging things, and resetting the board, I switched the tv back on. It came on, but it was...weird. The colour was so washed-out as to be almost black and white, and the picture was warped; the vertical lines were all just slightly concave.

Something had, for want of a better word, 'blown'³, and the decision had been made for me.

¹I mostly write on my laptop while sitting in front of the tv, but I don't have wireless so if I want to check my email or Facebook or Twitter, I've got to go to the PC, which is in the dining room, facing away from the tv.
²At least I assume that's what it is. Either way, it's normally bright orange and now it was dull.
³I commented on Facebook that it'd blown a 'gasket' – given how old my tv was.

Spoiled for choice

When I bought my last tv, back in 1998, there wasn't anywhere near as much variety as there is now. In fact, I only had to make two decisions – how big a Sony Trinitron did I want to get, and which store did I want to get it from.

Since then, of course, things had changed – so I had a lot of thinking to do. How big a screen do I want? Should I get plasma, LCD or LED? Full HD? 3D? And which manufacturer?

After some faffing about, research online, talking to people, toin-cossing, daisy-petal-pulling, tarot card reading, haruspicy⁵ and so forth, I decided on a Panasonic 42” Full HD⁶ plasma.

⁵That's telling the future by consulting the entrails of sacrificed animals. No, I'm not kidding.
⁶ Yes, Paul Barbara, that was thanks to your advice – as, no doubt, you'll never let me forget.

Shopping

In some ways I'm a very patient person. In other ways, though, I'm not – and one thing that I'm impatient about is, once I've made a decision to acquire something, getting my little⁷ hands on it as soon as possible. Then there was the fact I was stuck with washed-out, bent-picture tv – and that just wouldn't do. I wanted my new plasma tv, and I wanted it now.

But I couldn't get it Monday after work; I'd made plans to go to dinner and a movie and wasn't prepared to back out of that just to get a tv⁸. So it'd have to be Tuesday.

Tuesday I left work and drove straight to the Good Guys store in Hectorville and wandered into the tv section and started looking for the one I wanted. One of the handy thing about the Good Guys is their website shows stock levels – so I knew they had the one I wanted. Or, at least, they did when I last checked earlier in the day.

Fortunately or unfortunately, one talent I seem to have acquired is the ability to appear invisible to salespeople; unless I go right up to them they pretty much ignore me. This can sometimes be handy – like if I'm only browsing with no intent to actually buy – but when I'm there to make a purchase it can be downright frustrating. After about ten minutes of standing around, I eventually chased someone down and told them what I wanted.

He checked the computer, and it said yes. I was very pleased because – given that the website said their was some there, and that I'd had to spend ten minutes being ignored by the staff – had it turned out that they didn't, I may well have exploded.

All I then needed to do was grab an HDMI cable – which I also wanted, given that my current dvr has HDMI output – hit the checkout, and go 'round the back to collect my new toy.

The grand total was, well, a grand. $1000 for the tv plus the cable – a pretty good deal.

⁷Literally, not figuratively.
⁸Plus the film I saw, Winter's Bone, was very good; I intend it to be topic of my next blog post.

Getting it home

My calculations of the size of the tv in its box⁹ had led me to believe I'd be able to fit it into the back set of my car. The weight I knew – about 25kg without packaging, courtesy of the Panasonic website – which wouldn't be a problem for me at all.

Before I bought it, though, the sales guy and I went out to my car and measured the size of my door-hole; he proclaimed it suitably big enough to fit the boxed-up tv. And he was right – just. It took the guys who brought it out a couple of goes, but they jammed it in there; I still had to lower both rear windows.

But it fit, and I didn't have to spend any more money on delivery or – more importantly – have to have it delivered. My impatience just wouldn't have coped well with that.

⁹Okay, I didn't make any calculations; I just kind of pictured how big I thought it would be.

Setting it up

After getting it home – a fun drive, given that with a back seat full of boxed-up plasma screen, I couldn't see out of my rearviewmirror¹⁰ - I carried it inside and set about getting it set up.

I had to overcome a couple of problems: having to screw the stand together, and then the tv to the stand with the hurdle being my having to remember where I left my screwdriver; and pulling out and plugging in the requisite cables.

I still haven't quite got it all sorted – for some reason I can't get my receiver hooked up to the television – and I'm using an old bookshelf as a stand, and it's currently sitting behind the other cabinets that house my dvr, receiver and dvd player.

From what I can tell none of the large furniture retailers (Freedom, IKEA) make the kind of cabinet that I need – one that has the right kind of shelf configuration that'll fit my centre speaker. So I'll need one custom made, and that's going to take some thought, time and effort.

But the important thing is I got it working.

¹⁰Yeah, I'm a Pearl Jam fan.

Enjoying it

It's an impressive device, it really is. Since I don't spend a lot of time watching tv at other people's houses, it never really struck me how much better the new technology is – in fact, quite the opposite; I didn't think it was all that great. But I guess I just hadn't been paying enough attention, because it's freaking awesome to watch.

The night I got it I had to go food shopping – but it was almost impossible for me to drag myself away, even though I wasn't watching anything in particular. Watching something as visually exquisite as an episode of Mad Men was an absolute delight. As I write this sentence, Wall-E is on – and it's looks amazing.

And then there's the cricket. When my old tv died, it hadn't even occurred to me that the Gabba test match was only days away, but imagine my excitement¹¹ when I realised I'd be able to watch it on a bigger, better screen.

The results were fairly predictable; it looked amazing. When I had the opportunity – i.e. yesterday (Saturday) – I watched nearly every ball, and intend to the same whenever I've got the time over the next few months.

Anyway, speaking of which, the cricket's back on – so I'm going to sit back and enjoy it in all its 42 inches of plasmatic¹² glory.

¹¹If you didn't already know – or hadn't guessed – in a huge cricket fan and spend a substantial part of my spare time in the summer watching it on tv.
¹²That's probably not a word. Such is the power of an awesome television.

A very unengaging engagement

2010-11-21T20:53:00.003+10:30

One of the biggest news stories this week was the announcement of Prince William's engagement to his long-term girlfriend Kate Middleton. Imagine my annoyance, though, on switching over to Channel 10 at 6pm the following day to find that, instead of an episode of The Simpsons, there was a half-hour special about this supposed 'news'.

This prompted me to comment on Twitter thusly:

Then, only two hours later, I was further incensed when I saw that Channel 9 had pulled an episode of The Big Bang Theory for, not just a half-hour special, but a whole hour-long feature.

I went straight to Twitter to vent some more:

Why was I so annoyed? Easy: because it's not important enough to justify anything more than a cursory mention in a standard news bulletin. We live in Australia, not England – and it's 2010; the monarchy is almost completely irrelevant anywhere outside of a history class.

And it's not as if there's anything particularly significant about his getting married anyway¹. Queen Elizabeth seems fit and well, and then there's Charles, who isn't exactly in poor shape either². It could be a very long time before we have to worry about whether or not his head's going to look good on our coins - and even then only if we haven't finally become a republic.

I just don't understand why Australian television networks decided to give this so much coverage – though I have to say I've rarely agreed with their decisions in the past; the miners trapped underground in Tasmania a few years back being a good example³.

But, as these things so often do, it's made me think.

¹As I also wrote on Twitter, if he announced he wanted to marry a guy, that would be something to do a special on.
²Physically at least. Mentally, I'm not so sure; he supports homeopathy and has spoken positively about Islam, neither of which endear him to me.
³Mostly to do with the amount of coverage, i.e. they were broadcasting from outside the mine when they weren't even close to getting them out – what was the point? They could have just let us know when it wasn't far away.

An expensive business

One thing that people have been discussing is how much the wedding is going to cost; there've been all sorts of estimates thrown around but none with any certainty - though, while the figures for Charles's wedding to Diana has never been revealed, but is thought to have cost £30million, and that was almost thirty years ago.

The Queen and Charles are now being pressured to contribute a significant amount to the cost of the event. The rest, though – security, mostly; millions of people will turn out to watch, plus every world leader (past and present) will be invited – will come from the public purse, at time when England, like so many other countries around the world, is dealing with the impact of the global financial crisis.

So the question therefore is: should it?

My first thought – as someone who dislikes both monarchies and pageantry – was 'hell no'. But the more I thought about it, the more complicated it became.

Bread and Circuses⁴

The expression, of course, refers to the idea – attributed to the Roman poet Juvenal – that it is the role (or even a requirement) of the government to entertain the people, at least to some extent; with the more cynical interpretation being that it distracts them from the more important issues. And it appears to be as true today as it was two thousand years ago.

Governments – our included – put a lot of money into entertainment, in the form of sport and the arts. Some people – like me – enjoy the fruits of both those figurative trees (albeit far more from the arts tree than the sport tree, but there's still enough of the latter to make it significant, a fruit salad if you will), but there are – as alien as the concept is to me – people who don't benefit a great deal from the subsidising of either.

Now, as I noted earlier, I – personally – don't give a tinker's cuss⁵ about the royal family, and think that anyone who finds this development even vaguely interesting or entertaining really needs to sit down and think about things for a while. But, despite its vacuity as a subject of interest, the fact is that a lot of people seem to care.

So, I guess as long as it's in the public interest, it's something the public will continue to fund - and if someone who didn't like theatre presented me with the same argument, I'd be unable to counter it. But don't count on me to be buying any commemorative tea-towels, reading any special editions of Hello, or not ranting on Twitter and Facebook when they take something I want to watch off the tv in favour of the latest inane development.

⁴Hat tip to Jordan ~~Roberts~~ Bell for reminding me of that particular expression.
⁵That's one for the Monty Python fans.

A new look

2010-11-15T18:29:00.000+10:30

It's been nearly two years, and I've decided to change the layout of the blog - albeit to another fairly simple Blogger template. While I like the idea of making something that's uniquely me, I don't have either the HTML knowledge or access to the web design software to do anything more exciting. I'm pretty happy with this one, though I wouldn't mind the column being a bit wider - so if anyone knows how I might do that and wants to let me know that'd be great.

Somewhat annoyingly, I've got to go back and reformat some of my old posts 'cause I'd put some code in my old layout to allow the 'read more' function - and that hasn't carried over. On the plus side, I've upgraded to the latest version of the publisher, which has a button for that so I don't need to keep manually adding extra code to each post.

Anyway, hope you like the new look. Feedback and suggestions - genuine suggestions that is¹ - are always welcome.

¹Because I'm very aware that some of you possess the same juvenile sense of humour as, well, me.

The Social Network

2010-11-14T14:59:00.002+10:30

Changing my mind

This isn't a review I thought I'd be writing. When I first heard there was a movie about how Facebook was created I thought it perhaps one of the dopiest idea for a film that I'd ever heard. But, not that long before it opened, I saw the credits list: directed by David Fincher, screenplay by Aaron Sorkin and soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross¹.

Aaron Sorkin is the creator of The West Wing and writer of many of its best episodes, as well as the play/film A Few Good Men – meaning he's been responsible for some of the best dialogue I've ever heard.

I don't own too many films on dvd – I just don't watch movies at home – but two of them are Fincher films: Seven and Fight Club. And they're two of my favourite movies of all time. He's responsible for some other great films over the last few years, most recently the award-winning The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Trent Reznor is the man behind Nine Inch Nails, and put together one of the best soundtracks of all time – David Lynch's Lost Highway.

Three of the most talented creative minds in the entertainment industry working together? Yeah, there's no way I wasn't going to see how that turned out.

¹Okay, him I'd never heard of before. But if Trent Reznor thinks he's good enough to work with, that's all I need to know.

A surprisingly interesting story

I probably knew as much about how Facebook came about – a couple of Harvard nerds created an application for people on-campus to find each other and keep in touch; it exploded from there onto a whole bunch of colleges in the US and then around the world, eventually being made available to the public where it quickly became the most popular social networking site on the planet.

That doesn't really sound like a movie, does it? Hell, no. But there's a lot more to it than that, and it's the fine details of how it all came about that makes it interesting, and the fact that it's presented in a way that leaves you to decide certain things for yourself – is Mark Zuckerberg (the Facebook creator) a socially awkward asshole² who stole the idea from some privileged rich kids? Did he screw his best friend out of the company they created together because he was jealous about the latter's invitation to join a prestigious club? How much was he influenced by Napster creator Sean Parker, who became involved in the project³?

²He comes across – to my untrained eye – like someone with Asperger's or at least some kind of autistic spectrum disorder. He definitely did some assholish things, though.
³This was probably the biggest surprise for me. I had no idea he was involved in Facebook at all.

Okay, so there's a story – but is that enough?

Perhaps in the hands of lesser mortals it wouldn't be, but thanks to Sorkin and Fincher it becomes one of the most captivating films I've seen in years. The dialogue – particularly that of Zuckerberg and Sean Parker – is razor sharp, and the way the stories are cut together – back and forth over several years, and at one point jumping between the two lawsuits Zuckerberg was involved in – kept things compelling.

There's a stunning scene where two of Zuckerberg's enemies, the Winkelvoss twins⁴, are at the Henley Regatta (in England) rowing for Harvard; it's just a superb piece of work, set off by Reznor/Ross's whacked-out version of Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King.

The performances were of a very high quality – Jesse Eisenberg does an amazing job of giving Zuckerberg the combination of awkwardness, naivety and sheer freak genius. Justin Timberlake is brilliant as the obnoxious, paranoid Sean Parker. Also good is Andrew Garfield, as the Facebook co-creator and eventual ex-best-friend Eduardo Saverin.

⁴In one scene Zuckerberg refers to them, collectively, as 'Winkelvi'; it's hilarious.

Things to think about

It made me think is that it's probably a good thing I never became successful in any way, since I'm almost certain I'd have been just as much of an arrogant, condescending asshole as Zuckerberg is portrayed as being. But – fortunately or unfortunately – that's not something I have to worry about.

What it also made me think about – and something I saw mentioned a lot on Twitter – was how amazing it is that someone so young was able to come up with something that changed the world in such a profound way. Even if you don't use or even like the idea of Facebook (and I know there are plenty who don't do either) you can't not appreciate exactly how big of a deal it actually is.

The verdict

It's definitely worth seeing. There's never been another film like it, and brings together some of the best film-making talent on the planet, and they've succeeded in capturing a pivotal event in history and presenting it in an entertaining and interesting way.

Deadwood Season One

2010-11-09T19:08:00.002+10:30

I've just finished watching the first season of Deadwood, a show that I'd heard about when it first came out in the US and received rave reviews. It was probably on one of the pay tv channels here not long after, but since I don't have that – I watch enough tv as it is, and can't justify spending the money – I only got to watch it when ABC2 picked it up and started showing it earlier this year¹.

¹I had contemplated buying it on dvd, but hadn't gotten around to it.

If you didn't already know...

The show is set in the town of the same name in what is now the US state of South Dakota, in the 187os. The Civil War is over but there is still fighting between the American settlers and the Native American traditional owners. Gold mining is a boom industry, and in South Dakota at the time a rash of discoveries led to what was called the Black Hills Gold Rush. Life in the gold mining settlements isn't easy, and the desire to strike it rich has led tough, desperate people to the region to seek their fortunes.

The characters

While the era itself is an interesting one, it's really the characters of the show that make it so damn good.

The regulars

Chief powerbroker in the settlement is Al Swearengen, the ill-tempered, foul-mouthed owner of the saloon/brothel The Gem; he's a curious mixture of keen business acumen and brutal pragmatism – during the course of first season alone he either murders (or orders the murders of) at least half a dozen people.

He has a team of henchmen in various capacities around the town – Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown³) and Sean Bridgers work in the saloon and do other odd (and dirty) jobs for Al. Then there's the weaselly E.B. Farnum (William Sanderson⁴), proprietor of The Grand Central Hotel; he's Al's flunky and frequent co-conspirator.

But a spanner falls into the works – in the form of sherriff-turned-hardware-store-owner Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant⁵), who, with his partner Sol Star, move to Deadwood to open a store. Seth has little interest in taking on the role of law enforcement for the settlement, but he finds himself helping people nonetheless.

Making matters even more complicated is the arrival of Cy Tolliver (Powers Boothe), who opens a saloon/brothel of his own (the Bella Union) – and before long is revealed to be almost as nasty and ambitious as Al.

There's also Trixie, one of Al's prostitutes and his preferred companion; Doc Cochran (the truly awesome Brad Dourif⁶), the camp doctor; A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones), publisher of the local newspaper; and Mr Wu, unofficial representative of the Chinese contingent who has dealings with Al.

³Whose biggest role prior to Deadwood was as Mary's mentally challenged brother Warren in There's Something About Mary.
⁴William Sanderson, who now plays Sheriff Bud Dearborn in True Blood.
⁵Who was in Hitman, but shouldn't have been 'cause he's not one of those people who have the sort of head that looks good shaved. I know, 'cause I've got the same problem.
⁶Grima Wormtongue in The Lord of the Rings films, and Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Coming and going

As is pretty standard for a show like this, there are some great guest appearances. My favourite from season one is Kristen Bell, whose nasty, foul-mouthed⁷ grifter character took me back to that wonderful moment during Cruel Intentions when Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Katherine shook her head at Cecile's stupidity, said 'fucking idiot', and in doing so – in my mind at least – reached stratospheric levels of hotness⁸.

Several characters are taken straight out of history - 'Wild' Bill Hickock, gunfighter and gambler and his offisders Charlie Utter and 'Calamity' Jane; General George R. Crook (Peter Coyote⁹); and Jack McCall, (Garrett Dillahunt¹⁰).

Psych's Carlon Lassiter (Timothy Omundsen) is New York fish-out-of-water Brom Garrett; magician Ricky Jay is Eddie Sawyer, a dealer for Cy Tolliver; frequent bit-parter Kim Dickens is Joanie Stubbs, another of Cy's employees. Titus Welliver (who I recently wrote about in my review of The Town), is another very nasty fellow, Silas Adams, a 'road agent' who comes to work for Al.

⁷Not as foul-mouthed as Al, though – sadly.
⁸I've come to realise I have a thing for nasty, manipulative women. Who swear.
⁹A man whose name you mightn't know, but whose awesome voice you've almost certainly heard; it was him in the iPad ads.
¹⁰Did some great work in Life (the series), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and No Country for Old Men. The characters he played in all three died – make of that what you will.

Only on cable

Frequent swearing¹¹, nudity, sex and brutal, graphic violence are common – and there's no way that gets shown on network television in the US. But without all of that it wouldn't be half as good as it is.

¹¹Al's favourite word, for example, appears to be 'cocksucker'. It's also the only word in English Mr Wu seems to know.

Like I said before, it's about the characters

Which means that it isn't, as a general rule, fast-paced. Some episodes are quite slow-going, but everything that happens is part of the bigger picture, and will contain at least some development for one or more of the characters. And, despite the sometimes sluggish progress, it's still captivating. Plus the relative lack of action means that when there is some excitement – and there are a few points at which a whole lot starts to happen at once – it's a great contrast.

Season 1 didn't cover – or, at least, didn't seem to cover – very much time; it really feels like it's just the first chapter of a very interesting story. So now I'm totally hanging out for Season 2 – I just have to wait and see if ABC2 will show it. Otherwise I'll be browsing for it on dvd.

Movie review: The Town

2010-11-01T17:57:00.003+10:30

I hadn't been to the movies as much over the last month or so; between the play, the busy schedules of both myself and my movie-going associates¹, and the fact there hadn't been that many movies come out in that time meant that the usual weekly trip to the cinema for some big-screen action didn't happen.

While I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum, it's going to be pretty much impossible to not give away a little. Thee be warned.

¹There are two, Chris and Miriam.

An easy decision

One film I'd been waiting to see, ever since I saw the preview for it a few months back, was The Town. It was about – well, at least what I gathered what it was about; as TV Tropes will tell you, never trust a trailer – a gang of bank robbers in Boston and the people trying to catch them. That alone had me somewhat interested; I like movies set in Boston – Good Will Hunting, The Departed and Mystic River are three in particular – and the idea of smart criminals always intrigues me (Heat, for example).

What put it beyond all doubt, though, was the combination of actor/director Ben Affleck, whose previous directorial work in Gone Baby Gone had impressed me; actor Jeremy Renner, Oscar®-nominated star of the Oscar®-winning The Hurt Locker; and the truly awesome Jon Hamm (Mad Men's Don Draper) and one of my favourite actors. Then there's Titus Welliver, who you've probably never heard of, but some who I like and who's been showing up in things I've seen over the last few years: tv shows like Life, Lost, Deadwood and Affleck's aforementioned previous directorial effort, Gone Baby Gone.

So, when it hit our screens it was only a question of deciding when and where.²

²Circumstances conspired that it would be at Palace/Nova on Monday October 25th, on the ExiMax screen - to be precise.

What I liked

Overall, I enjoyed the film. It was well-thought-out – something very important to me; I hate reacting to something with 'but...that's just dumb'³ - and kept me interested the whole way through. Most of the characters (more on that later) were complex, intriguing and believable.

There were some great performances, especially from Jeremy Renner as bank robber James "Jem" Coughlin – who was just scary and intense the whole way through – and a focused and downright nasty Jon Hamm as FBI agent Adam Frawley.

³What TV Tropes refers to as a wall banger.

What I didn't like

For starters, Blake Lively, who played Coughlin's sister, Krista⁴. Admittedly, that's nothing new; despite her fame I've never really seen the appeal on the physical level, and from the Gossip Girl episodes I've seen she's never struck me as being overburdened with talent either. But I assumed that to be cast in such esteemed company she'd have had to have some ability, and that it'd come out in this film.

Apparently not. While she wasn't on screen much, the few times she did appear she failed to impress me. Some of it may not have been her fault; her character wasn't especially well-written – which was another problem. Her relationships with the other two main characters (Affleck's and Renner's) are pivotal to the outcome, but this isn't developed or explored in any way throughout the course of the film, other than in a few scenes.

Pete Postlethwaite, who I've liked in everything else I've seen him in – In the Name of the Father, Romeo + Juliet and The Usual Suspects – also failed to impress. His character, Fergie 'The Florist' Colm is meant to be a tough-as-nails Irish gangster but he just comes across as a scrawny, unpleasant old man. His dialogue didn't help; it was unrealistic and undermined any chance of menace⁵.

There were some missed opportunities. The great Chris Cooper⁶ plays Affleck's character's father, but only appears in one brief scene. At one point Jon Hamm's character, FBI Agent Frawley, talks about getting the four gang members in grilling them in the interrogation room. But the only one 'interview' – the one with Affleck's character, Doug MacRay – is shown.

⁴Actually, I'd gotten the idea into my head that she was MacRay's (Affleck's character) sister - which would have made a few of the scenes much weirder, if you know what I mean...⁵The gold standard for hard old bastards is, of course, 'Brick Top' as portrayed by Alan Ford in Snatch.
⁶Of American Beauty, Adaptation and Seabiscuit, to name a few.

The verdict

Despite the flaws I've noted, I did like the film and think it's definitely worth seeing.

It was good to see Jeremy Renner again; it would seem that his being cast in this means he's going to keep showing up in things. Similarly, that Jon Hamm appears to have managed the often difficult transition from small screen to large, which might mean interesting things for his career.

Plus it was good to see Affleck in something decent again. It's probably going to mean he's going to start showing up in more films, shaking off the bad reputation he'd acquired during the dark J-Lo⁷ period. Considering he's in a couple of Kevin Smith's better films - Mallrats and Chasing Amy - as well as things like Shakespeare in Love⁸, it's not as if he doesn't have the ability.

⁷I never liked her. On any level. Just so you know.
⁸Oh, and of course he was the bomb in Phantoms, yo...