Talking and Comedy

On Friday 30th, after a sunny day off work, my friend Jes and I went to see our last event of the Hello Darkness mini-festival, a talk and slideshow by Ken Warner about his photographs of Halloween from San Francisco.

I hadn’t heard of him before, but a quick search online found some photographs of high interest and good quality. He visited or lived in San Fransisco for twenty-odd years, and photographed the Halloween street parties which were based around the gay community there. He discussed how the parties came about, what people thought about it and some of the experiences he had while there. He showed us colour photos, as he had published a book of black and white photos and felt that the colour photos were something new.

There were some very interesting images involving people with costumes that were certainly worthy of some analysis. The highlight I think was the man who, apparently year after year, wore a costume consisting of pads and tampons with blood-red paint (at least I hope it was paint).

The room it took place in was on Brunswick Street, in an upstairs open-plan place. It seemed like the ideal place for a party, and although we headed off early, it seemed that a party would go on into the night. I even managed to sit on the hard wooden floor for the few hours it lasted. The crowd was an interesting mix of friends of friends of people who organised it, artistic types who were interested in the photos and quirky gothic types who just wanted to go to everything Halloween themed. I’m not sure where I fit in, but I was wearing plastic mini jack-o-lantern earrings.

The longer weekend was fairly quiet and lazy. Saturday afternoon consisted of an impromptu pub crawl and the evening a delicious dinner at the old Dainty Sechuan in Chinatown. Sunday was again, lazy, and involved watching
Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders’. We’d seen the first earlier this year, and this was significantly worse, but still amusing and lightly entertaining.

Unfortunately I had to work Monday, breaking up what could have been a five-day weekend. However, Cup eve evening was spent eating good food, drinking good beer and watching good comedy. We had dinner at Red Pepper at the top end of Bourke Street, a tried and tested Indian eatery. At only $6 for a veggie curry, and slightly less for an alcoholic beverage, it’s a great bargain.

Next up we headed over to Spleen, where there is free comedy on Monday nights. Although I’ve had the intention of going many times, this was the first time I actually managed to attend. Adam Rozenbachs was acting as MC and there was a huge set of other small-name comedians. Adam used a lot of the material he had at the comedy festival and when I saw him at the Comedy Club, but had added some new bits and delivered the old stuff in different ways.

Otherwise, Sammy J was fantastic, Felicity Ward was great and Troy Kinne was fairly good too. They were the highlights, but the others weren’t all bad. I think I’ll have to make an effort to go again, but not when it’s too warm – the air-con wasn’t very good!

Melbourne Cup Day was an enjoyable public holiday, and to avoid the racing rabble we headed to the cinema. We saw ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’, which I suppose is also called the movie that Heath Ledger was making when he died.

Overall, I liked it. It wasn’t amazing, and Heath Ledger didn’t get much of an opportunity to show how great he was, but it was an enjoyable movie and done well, particularly when you take into account what happened. I understand that they had to re-write chunks of it to enable three other actors to fill in (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell). I can’t say in comparison to how it was before, but the re-write definitely worked and the other three actors stepped up to the mark and did fantastically. Tom Waits also deserves a mention; I think I’m becoming a fan of his.

Otherwise, the movie is a long one, but doesn’t seem it. The story is interesting, if a little confusing. The special effects are beautiful and the costumes are especially impressive.

After that, it was all downhill and back to work today.

Hello Darkness

A friend had pointed this film festival out to me, a special horror movie run just before Halloween. It was to be shown at ACMI, which has become a frequent haunt of mine, with their ‘Freaky Friday’ features. With an interest in most of the movies showing at this festival, we bought one of the four movie passes and picked the following:

Paranormal Activity
There has apparently been a significant amount of hype around for this movie, but I hadn’t heard too much about it other than a website petition for the movie to be shown in certain towns (a rather successful marketing trick). This showing was sold out, but I had low expectations – a hand-held self-filmed movie? I couldn’t help but think of the Blair Witch Project. Thankfully this turned out much better. It seemed to last for a long time, but only because it was so tense all the way through. Despite this the characters created some natural comedy, but not enough to override the tension, particularly later on. I found myself sucked into the story and about half way through I had to remind myself that it was only a movie and it wasn’t real.

I won’t give too much away, but the story was great, if lacking in detail in places and the action was simple and spectacular. The ending I saw (one of three according to most websites) was good, but I felt added too much comedy to it rather than fear. The other two endings that I have heard about sound better, but whether they were executed well is another matter.

The Last House on the Left
This was the recent remake of the original from the 1970s, and I saw it only half an hour after ‘Paranormal Activity’, so obviously my expectations were fairly high. As it was fairly different, it wasn’t hard to expect different, and there was definitely a comedic gore factor to it, as well as some social and moral issues lightly tossed in.

As I haven’t seen the original, I can’t say how it compares, but I can say that it was a good movie. The acting was fairly good (especially the ‘bad guys’), and the special effects of blood and guts was fairly realistic for the most part. It was a scary movie in a different way, because there wasn’t too much tension building (and what there was was short-lived). The fear came in the believing that people could act that way, and that revenge could be that easy.

As I said, I wasn’t scared by this one, but it was still a good horror movie.

Sheitan
The first of two foreign language movies, I was quite looking forward to this one. I’ve seen some French movies, and quite enjoy their quirkiness, but was unsure whether that would continue into the horror-style movies. It certainly did. This movie definitely did not disappoint – there was tension, violence, sex and generally strange things. It was fantastic.

I feel the camera work is also worth a mention, with different techniques being applied to bring out the different moods throughout the movie. This was a strong point for me.

Overall there was a certain element of humour throughout this movie, right until the end, and it helped to confuse the audience. The moments of humour would come at unexpected points, or be so closely linked to the fear that it gave a very uneasy feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Haute Tension
The last movie of my four, and another French one. A quick look at IMDB indicated that this would be different to the oddness of ‘Sheitan’ and a more traditional horror slasher gore-fest; it certainly didn’t let down on the last count!

The story was a little predictable, with an inkling of the ending in the back of my mind. However, the execution was fairly good, with the build up, the action and a prolonged conclusion all being of high quality. The acting was hit and miss at times, but the soundtrack, camera work and blood made up for this for the most part. The plot was also missing in parts, but I still thought it worked.

Probably the weakest of the four I saw, but going by the high quality, it was definitely not a bad movie.

After re-reading this, I feel that I’m being faithful to my ‘resolution’ of sorts to watch more movies!

Heritage

After hearing about the Tesselaar Tulip Festival about a month ago, I found out that this weekend would have a Dutch theme, with food, music, dancing and crafts. Knowing that it could be an improvement on the one I went to at Southbank in April (where high winds and rain buffeted all day and it was all but shut down as soon as it had started).

With a forecast of a chance of showers and moderate winds, we decided to risk it and headed out on a train. The train should have taken us to Lilydale, but instead stopped at Ringwood for a replacement bus service. It was already raining by this point, which we should have taken as an omen. We got to Lilydale station eventually, and the connecting shuttle bus had just left. Another omen. After seeking shelter out the front of an estate agent, we were about to move into Coles for warmth, when what I think was unscheduled bus turned up. Never one to complain, we made a run for it and were on our way, crossing our fingers that the rain would stop soon.

Unfortunately it just varied between heavy and light rain for most of the morning, rendering the grassy areas sodden and the fields of brightly coloured tulips uninviting.

Hoping to find the Grolsch tent that we had seen noted on the website, we went for a short walk and found a small tent serving non-Dutch food, with a fridge containing some bottles of beer and lots of people sheltering from the rain. Braving the weather, we moved around a little bit and I went on a search for some delicious food. First of all I found some Rookwurst (with mustard), which was devoured. After wandering a little more and sheltering in tents with various crafts, we gave up even thinking about taking photos. I had some croquette (with mustard) and bought some siroopwafelen for later.

After one last round, hoping the rain might ease up, we noticed that a previously empty tent was now selling various chilli sauces – Death Sauce, Stupid Hot etc. We had a quick chat with the stall owners while deciding which to buy (I settled on a four-pack, two milder and two hotter Death Sauces).

After this, there seemed little point in hanging around getting wetter, so we headed off to wait for the bus, which came thankfully quickly. It was good to be on our way back to civilisation.

Judging by my recent experiences, I think it’s safe to say that unless the weather forecast is ‘No possible chance of rain, fog or high winds’, I won’t be leaving the house voluntarily soon! I reckon it could have been improved greatly by some rubber matting laid down on areas of grass into/out of the tents, and perhaps an extra tent or shelter or two. As it was, it was unbearable for any extended period of time.

Yesterday was slightly better though. After a bit of research, we headed to the Penny Black on Sydney Road to watch the Grand Final. We had a quick lunch at a place called ‘Empire’, also on Sydney Road (quite good food, fairly standard) beforehand. We had a table reserved, giving a lovely view of the projected game, just next to the bar. It was a shame about the result (it would have been nice to see the Saints win, and more importantly, Geelong lose!) but at least it was a good, close game to finish the year off.

Now however, being a Sunday afternoon, it’s time for warming up, drying off and kicking back until Monday morning arrives.

Chicago

Last night I went to see Chicago at Her Majesty’s theatre, something I’ve been itching for since I heard it was coming to Melbourne. I booked my ticket last week, a seat at the back of the stalls. After mentioning it at work though, someone told me that it’s quite disappointing. She said the outfits and some characters aren’t done very well, and now I know exactly what she meant.

Don’t get me wrong, it was good. It’s a relatively professional stage production of a great musical; it would have been hard to ruin entirely. However there are many criticisms to make – of many different aspects.

First of all, the casting. Caroline O’Connor and Sharon Millerchip (Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart respectively) were definitely not expected; I had been waiting for leggy, young, attractive, confident characters with powerful voices. Instead, two older women, without the bodies (but definitely with voices, don’t get me wrong) were introduced. More importantly, Roxie was being portrayed as a child-like, almost retarded woman, instead of the confused but then reassured character. This was most frustrating, as it added too much humour to it (watching a grown woman act like a handicapped prisoner is funny now?) and distracted from what could have been fantastic songs and acts.

Next up was Gina Riley, who I’m sure many people know as ‘Kim’ from ‘Kath and Kim’. As most people know, she can sing, so that was no surprise. However, it seemed that were relying on that and her fame from television to distract from the fact that she couldn’t really act and had a terrible outfit on. She kept giving the audience little smiles which said, ‘How cool is this, I’m live on stage’, instead of saying, ‘I’m a sexy prison officer who does favours for the in-mates, check out my sex appeal’. Her outfit was a loose-fitting trouser-suit, with a tiny bit of cleavage, and she barely moved around the stage. She should have been strutting around the stage wearing something tight-fitting and/or revealing.

On the other hand, Craig McLachlan and Damien Bermingham (Billy Flynn and Amos Hart respectively) were fantastically cast, their outfits and mannerisms were spot on and did all that was expected of them (by me at least). Damien Bermingham especially did well, with a perfect version of ‘Mr Cellophane’. Of course, the back-up singers/dancers/extras/whatever they are called were all brilliant as well – the bodies, the moves and their voices were great. It’s almost enough to encourage me to take up dancing.

I think the fact that the main character wasn’t portrayed correctly all but ruined it for me. The fantastic singing and flexibility couldn’t make up for the fact that she was playing an entirely different character to what was expected (maybe just from me).

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good performance. A lot of money and effort has gone into it, and it shows. It just didn’t live up to my expectations.

Trying to make use of my day off, I decided to head into the city to look for a new bag. Knowing that my current bag is ready to drop at any minute, I’ve been looking for pretty much exactly the same bag as before. Which, as we all know, is almost impossible.

As I was walking down from North Melbourne, I went into Melbourne Central and had a look at some of the more likely shops, but found nothing close. Instead of heading down Swanston Street, as I’ve done before, I went into Myer, hoping there might be something reasonably priced in a sale. I managed to find a similar style messenger bag in the Dangerfield section of the basement. They said that their till wasn’t working, so pointed to another one which I headed toward. This one had two women at it, neither of which acknowledged me when I approached. I put forward some pleasantries and indicated I’d like to make a purchase, but one walked off and the other informed me that she works for another company and can’t sell me other goods.

They pointed me over to another till (by which stage I’d lost all sense of direction in the windowless basement filled with school kids), where there was also nobody serving. I stood for a minute, looking around hopefully, but could see nobody willing to help. Eventually I started wandering back in the direction I had come from and found someone wearing a Myer lanyard, and hoped that he might be able to help me. He point out the till I had just come from and said that I could pay there. When I pointed out that there was nobody there and I had been sent from till to till, he let out a big sigh and sauntered over to help me. Just in the nick of time, as I was about to walk out with the bag and point out that if nobody was around to take my money, I couldn’t pay…

This is just one of the many, many reasons I hate shopping.

Thankfully I now have what appears to be a reasonably strong, well-priced bag to replace my other one. Hopefully it’ll be another few years until I have to deal with it again.

Almost Respected Lord Mayor

Our wonderful Lord Mayor, Robert Doyle, has had some bad ideas since coming to power – re-opening Swanston Street, stopping the hailing of taxis in the streets and keeping the bogans out of the CBD. However, he’s finally come out with some sense.

When the tram and train services change at the end of the year, there has been talk of better timetables, cleaner carriages and value-for-money. However, Doyle has urged the new company, a branch of Keolis, to run certain trams all night on Friday and Saturday nights.

I reckon that this is a great idea. Now that I’ve moved away from the city, if I stay out late at night, then the only reasonable way to get home is a taxi after the trains and trams stop running. If some tram lines keep running ’til the early hours though, it’ll mean that many people can home for a reasonable price by their usual routes.

Good on ya Doyle, just make sure you keep Swanston Street closed so that the trams can run up it though.

Second Anniversary

On September 1st it passed the second year I’ve been in Melbourne. As pointed out in my last post, I’m quite settled here and enjoying everything.

Anyway, the weekend before last, I took a day-trip out to Mt Buller to see Australian snow for the first time. After doing some investigative work, the best deal I could find was through the tourist agency ExtraGreen for a bus from the city and back. After a last-minute upgrade, we ended up on a good quality bus on our way out of the city at 6am. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t exactly pleasant, and as we headed to higher ground, the rain started to fall. It continued all day, and all but ruined the day.

If it hadn’t been raining, we could have hired some snow shoes and gone for a hike, or completed the Gnome Roam (as it was, I could only find one gnome on the clock tower before giving up), or even just had a better look around the village. Unfortunately, after some lunch and some more skipping between buildings, we headed up Summit Road to a pub and spent some time playing Buckhunter! The snow barely got a look in.

I was almost grateful to be on the bus going home after the wasted day there. As we pulled into Mansfield (where people had hired snow-gear), the rain cleared and there was some beautiful late afternoon light. As we had some time to kill, we went for a quick walk around nearby and took some photos before the clouds covered the rest of the sky.

Other than that, nothing too big has been happening for me. This Friday past, I had free tickets to the Comedy Club, where I got to see Adam Rozenbachs as MC, with Terry North and Lehmo. Terry North is an English comedian that I’ve seen on two other occasions, and he still has no new material. Thankfully Lehmo and Adam Rozenbachs both made up for this and it was an enjoyable night.

I’ve been quite busy at work recently, but I’ve also been to the movies a few times. I saw District 9 a few weeks ago. This was a refreshing movie. The fact that it was South African, with little American influence, was quite noticable. The acting was a little iffy at times – with the main character barely developing at all. Apart from that, the special effects and costumes were impressive, and I liked the movie.

The other movie I saw was Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds. Now this movie has had a fair amount of press, and I was looking forward to it. It didn’t disappoint. The violence was plentiful, and there was more than enough dialogue, but overall I felt that it worked. The in-depth dialogue and speeches were, at times, overkill, but added to the rest of the action, it was fantastic. The acting was fantatic, with mostly unknown (to me at least) actors. The character of Col. Landa, played by Christoph Waltz, was particularly impressive.

As the Melbourne Silver Mine’s Unsensored 09 exhibition closes on Wednesday, I highly recommend heading down if you get the chance. It sounds like it has been quite successful, with a number of people passing through and some of the pieces have sold (multiple times!) My image hasn’t sold, but I was aiming to bring it home to adorn our wall instead. It certainly would have been nice to make a sale, but after agonising over the images, I decided to hang them just for the sake of hanging, rather than to make money. This is the first time my work has been displayed in public, and I’m quite content just to be able to see my work large and on the wall!

While on the subject of photography, I visited Scienceworks Museum last weekend to see the Star Wars exhibition. Taking my camera and a couple of lenses was the easy bit, but with many of the displays poorly lit and behind glass smeared with children’s fingerprints, getting the photos was a bit harder. I took my still new-ish 40D with my 50mm f/1.8, and by using my adaptor, I also had two Nikon mount lenses – 85mm f/1.4 and 24mm f/2.8. Unfortunately the former of these was of little use in the crowded rooms, but the 24mm was useful on occasion to get some close-ups of pieces.

Unfortunately I didn’t manage to see any more movies at MIFF, but I did see the Whitlams playing at the Corner Hotel last weekend. Their show was quite extensive, with only one support and playing one album in full (Eternal Nightcap). It was a fantastic show with an intriguing crowd. Thankfully, MUFF starts soon, and I should be able to see a few more of those.

Just this weekend, I saw ‘Drag Me To Hell’ as it’s cinema run is finishing. I thoroughly enjoyed this, despite mixed reviews. There were moments where I momentarily cringed and thought it would go down hill, but it managed to redeem itself. The acting, for the most part, was very good, but I felt there were too many ‘jumps’ to be fun. It ended up distracting from the story and acting. On the whole though, it was fantastic. Hopefully this week I will manage to see District 9 too.

While I’m remembering, I never got around to mentioning the latest Harry Potter movie. As a movie, it was fantastic. The darkness, the acting and the effects were all very good and the movie moved along nicely. Obviously, as a comparison to the book, it’s disappointing. Many, apparently unimportant, aspects and scenes were left out, and there were huge chunks missing. Also, the scene of Dumbledore’s death, which could and should have been amazing, was a huge letdown.

So last month my parents were in the country – mostly in Adelaide, but flew in and out of Melbourne so there was a chance for us to catch up. I took them around to a couple of places and showed them the city. We had an afternoon at Fairfield Boat House, and I treated them to a dinner at Punch Lane Wine Bar. Both were delicious and I strongly recommend them if you have a chance to try either.

Other than that, it’s been the same old photography/knitting/reading/socialising mess for me! I’ve been knitting a cardigan for a friend who is expecting a new baby, and I’ve branched out a bit with a striped pattern and different stitches – it’s coming along very nicely and pictures will be posted once it’s completed. I’ve also been using a very easy bootie pattern and made a few pairs with leftover yarn. It’s very basic, but quite productive as you can do them almost with your eyes closed.

Photography-wise, as per my last post, there’s an exhibition of film photography next week run by the Melbourne Silver Mine group. I have a set of three photos displayed at this, which have been printed and framed but I haven’t had a chance to collect them just yet. What I know of the other shots are very good, if a little ‘Melbourne-y’, and I’d highly recommend you head along if you get a chance.

For my birthday I was given a Holga 120N with a small flash, and I eagerly tried these out at the last Melbourne group Flickr meet. Although I mixed up the film size without a mask, the photos came out quite nicely on Neopan 400.

Last night I managed to see the first (and probably only) movie of the Melbourne International Film Festival, a Norwegian one called ‘Dead Snow’. It was a story about Nazi zombies attacking a group of young, attractive students. I really enjoyed it; there were laughs and jumps, and the writer knew how to make fun of himself. It turned out very well, and it’s made me want to see more movies of a similar vein – many of which I own on DVD but haven’t watched yet. I’ll get to them!

I don’t know that I’ll get time to see any others, which is a shame as there seems to be a lot on (even with those pulled out for political reasons). I’ve heard good things about Tony Manero and Chocolate though.

Moving and settling

So, the big move. It was all rather quick and we’ve only just caught our breaths now. It was less than two weeks of being offered the place to us getting the keys, and we started to move straight away. The Friday that we collected the keys, we did four or five runs with Kat’s car of the little bits – things I could carry up the (three flights of) stairs and that we didn’t trust removalists with. My legs held out and we were fairly successful. As we started to move stuff in though, we began to panic that all of our stuff wouldn’t fit. This was to be proven wrong the next day.

On the Saturday, we did a couple of runs (with extra hands of course) in the morning before the removalists came. Once they turned up, it was around an hour to pack up the truck, with all of us helping carry stuff out to the truck. I was predicting up at an hour per flight of stairs at the other end, but it was done much quicker than that. The plan to get removalists was a good one, as it would have taken hours (and days) for Kat’s back and my knees to get everything up here!

As it turns out, once there was furniture around and beds were set up, the rooms seemed biggeer. It was clear from the start that we were downsizing, but not by as much as we though. Everything fits, and we’re only clearing out stuff so that we can buy more (mostly in the form of books!)

I’m quite content at this new place. I’ve quickly adjusted to taking the train to work, but thankfully it’s never too busy (standing on the way in, but always get a seat coming home) and I had paid for monthly tickets at times when I was temping at the old place, so the cost wasn’t a shock. As the last boxes are being unpacked (or we permanently position them in corners of rooms), the place is feeling much more like home. However, if (and that’s a big if), we move again, the furniture is all staying up here. I’ll buy new stuff for the next place!!

On top of this havoc, my parents arrived in the country on the 30th. They’re here for a month, but only had 3 nights in Melbourne initially before going over to Adelaide by car. It’s certainly good to see them again, but it’s strange seeing familiar faces in place that I’ve never seen them. We caught up for dinner the three nights they were here, and will do so again at the other end of the trip when they come back before they fly out.

Other than that, it’s just been a matter of settling in and trying to get on with things. I’ve been knitting quite avidly for the last few months – first for my friend Kayleigh, then for my colleague who has just left on maternity leave, and now another friend has announced his wife is expecting, so I’m planning the next thing. On the wonderful Ravelry, I found a pattern for very easy booties, and I’ve done three pairs of these with leftover yarn which would otherwise be passed onto the Salvos or hoarded until I come up with a better plan. I’ve done a pair in under two hours, so it’s a relatively quick pattern (for my speed of knitting), and they’re easily done on straight needles. However, after two relatively plain baby jumpers, I’m about to branch out a little. More details as they’re decided!