14 posts tagged “movies”

So I've been procrastinating. This weekend has meant to be about getting my assignment well under way.  Instead I've watched the following films:

• Failure to Launch (Matthew McCaunnaugy, Sarah Jessica Parker) - would've been better if there werent a heap of scratches in it!  seems like the same formulae as many other romantic comedies with Matthew McCaunnaughy doing his little heart warming good guy "what the f*#) went wrong" goofy guy who realises he's been conned chat, this time not with a chinese crustit, this time with a cute little kid instead.  Too many parallels, been done before.
• The Weeping Camel (Tibet) - georgeous cinematography, not fast paced, I just wanted to give that little camel colt a huge hug!  aww!  a simple movie showing simple lives in a very different place, with a little camel colt starving and crying because it's mother rejected it.  Cute.
• The Beat My Heart Skipped (French) - mm.  Tallfriend and I have a friend from my work which I'll have to think of a nickname for but SHeBean for a female Mister Bean (her facial expresions can be quite rubbery when she is animated) ...well SheBean recommended this flick, and it's bleak.  What a way to demonstrate someone fighting against their father's upbringing to try to realise a more peaceful life, but not being able to ignore the animal inside themselves.  sheesh.
• Big (nothing like an 80's movie for procrastinating, especially with Tom Hanks)
• Beyond Borders (Angelina Jolie, Clive Owen..rrrowrrrlll) I wonder, not being a major star chaser, whether this movie was what started the whole goodwill ambassador thing Angelina has been on.  The ending made me blubber. But I'm a sook.
• Casino Royale (for sheer perve value.. sorry Clivey baby (Clive Owen), I had to cheat momentarily!)  The best Bond EVER.  The torture scene wil make men everywhere wince.
• Kill Me Softly - a very raunchy who dunnit ...Joseph Finnes... I'd rather hop into bed with you than a toilet cubicle at 5000 feet any day with your older brother!  SheBean's selection from my collection to watch.  The ending isn't a huge twist, the book was much better but very bleak.

Next up on the procrastinating list: Apres Vous? (French flick) and hopefully better Tropfest movies than the one I just saw (a gumshoe movie with no real point)  I WANT to get a copy of "The Valet" to add to my collection.  A french flick, totaly funny, a real cracker.   

How cool I'm watching some short 7 minute films done for "Tropfest" Australian short film festival.  So far they've been excellent.  If I find a link I'll share it.  It's fantastic to see independant film makers of varying degrees of experience receiving recognition.  So how many sneezes does it take in a row to imitate an orgasm?  ;)

Well, to follow the instructions of the real estate agent lady, I've gone all out and purchased a heap of paint (with the idea that if I have any leftover I can use it when/if I move anyway).  I spent about $500 on paint, lacquer for the slate tiles and all sorts,and other paint paraphernalia and I've gotten just about everything in the house painted.  Well, I'm about 2/3 of the way through, with a little help from Eyore and her new man today. 

It's all going to a neutral buttermilk colur that has a pale barely noticeable lemon tinge to it to  brighten up the place.  It looks clean and fresh which was the idea.

I went out and caught a movie last night called "The Method" - I'll give the link here.  All I can say is that it was weird.  A demonstration of just how much people will go through out of competitiveness and to win the job.  I found it a bit bleak though and a scary demonstration of just to what lengths people will go to ethically to win a role. 

SO, I got a call this morning from bub sis, ill and needing to rush over to the doctors and needing someone to mind Nephew1.  She's going to be ok and I got a nephew fix, then charged off again to get some supplies.  On the way home out of curiousity I checked out an outdoor furniture sale.  BIG mistake or a good idea, I'm yet to decide.  I walked away with a receipt and instructions about where to pick up the chairs and flatpack. 

AIEEE.  One 5 min quick stickybeak turned into the mission from hell which, if you were a fly on the windscreen, you'd be laughing your butts off. 

I drove to this pick up point, to discover that I could only JUST manage to cram the outdoor tempered glass table into the car.  I drove home side saddle in the front seat as I couldn't squeak my leg between the steering wheel and the seat it was so far forward and drove very awkwardly with nose practically pressed up against the windscreen of my little jelly bean hatch car.  I got home ok,dropped the table off and went back for the chairs.  Who'd have thunk it, but the outdoor chairs turned out to be an even huger mission!  The trip home was easier, but getting them out by myself.  Errr not so good.  I struggled and swore and tugged and pushed and finally got them out much redder in the face and puffed, took them out the back and started putting everything together (new purchase, HAD to be done!). SO I did that, gapfilled around the front door (oh my aren't I becoming handy..next I'll grow chesthair!)

Eyore and her man came over and helped out then with painting (goofing off and being cute just as much as painting - it was barfably adorable).  I realised later I had skanky undies on (laundry day) and the grungy pants I was painting in were doing nasty plumbers crack things and woo nelly her man must really love to her have tolerated me exposing the icky green last of the underwear grundies!

So the house is a mess, but the walls are starting to look fabulous.  The garden is still a mess - I've not had a chance to look at it in far too long.  Case in point for looking for another place. 

Angel emailed me on Friday joking about how if he dared to come over, he'd pick up a paintbrush so long as he could have a wine glass in the other hand.  I didn't respond.  He sms'd me last night while I was in the movie asking how the house painting was going and reminded me to change my clocks back to remove daylight saving (ugh I hate it... I have enough trouble going to bed early/getting up early so this morning was supposed to be a fabulous sleep in ah well), then gushed on about how I should come over his place and help him with his plants (his usual excuse for trying to vie for help/company as it'd worked back when I didn't know him well, as a friend).  I ignored the sms. 

It's stupid I know - we have no hold on each other and I should know already where he's coming from, but it hurt, it was insensitive, and I've known for a while that the friendship wasn't working for me.   

http://www.perthfestival.com.au/index.cfm?go=events.view&Category=lotterywest&Event=heavenI went to see this movie tonight at an outdoor film festival.  Angel had sms'd me this afternoon asking what I was up to.  It's stupid, but part of me hoped he'd actually show an interest in joining me to do something that I take an interest in. Of course he didn't come along.  He was fishing for a different reason I guess.

ANYHOW back to the movie - there wasn't a dry eye in the place when it finished and it's one of the few times I've heard a whole theatre clap afterwards, despite the lack of focus at times by the cinema when they were playing it.  The overall feel of the film was of a community that wasn't united, until a classical music conductor who had a major health scare goes back to his old home village to decompress and breathe in life again.  In the process he breathes life back into the community. 

I thoroughly recommend it.  I think it was Swedish but don't quote me on that.   

GF has been on a total mission this week to stir things up between Angel and I, but failed miserably.  It's getting quite petty and showing her up for the total mischief manipulating person that she has been lately.

1. Firstly my desk phone rang off the hook from her desk phone on Monday late morning.  I'd just come out of running an orientation for a new starter, still fighting off the vestiges of a migraine so I was groggy and really couldn't be arsed to tell you the truth, to deal with whatever latest mood swing or demand for attention that GF was planning on throwing my way, especially if the calls were so insistent and she wasn't leaving a message or sending an email.  Finally I answered her 6th attempt, and got told in scandalised, pretending to be loftily casual tones, that Nanna* had walked downstairs in her work building and ran smack dab into Angel to run his new job's orientation!  She somehow discovered from THAT ..I shudder to think how... that one of Angel's ancient ex's whom he lived with for 6 years, sits right next to her.  Oh whoopee. I had mental images of getting little gossipy snipey calls from GF with more and more frequency. So I sent him a casual email telling him about it to give him a heads up that one of GF's friends is working around him and to top it off, his ex (in case they don't get on).  He was bemused and told me all about it even though I told him he didn't have to that I wasn't fishing.  They are still friendly, she came down from north of the state with her partner to work in Perth and he briefly wished her well.  So that little attempt to stir just backfired a) because I know it's none of my business and b) because he told me anyway despite us only being friends.  * a mutual friend who I've not heard from much since GF has been back, the good natured fretter whose back behind which GF and her new #1 bestest buddy snipe, which should've warned me in itself.
2. Now secondly for the cracker.  Tuesday night GF ran into Angel at the cricket with one of her buddies. I got the email of course, bright & early the next morning telling me she had run into him and trailing off after saying that she said hello (trying to bait me into buying into asking what happened .. I KNOW she'd have loved for him to have joined her and her friend or attempting to hit on her if the way she's acted around DarkHorse was anything to go by) So of course I bite but more out of amusement. I know his feelings about her so I'm in no doubt about how pally or more to the point, NOT, that he would've been so there is no apprehension in my question.  I get a reply of "oh I copped the usual abuse".  Uh huh.  He doesn't abuse her.  Even when she's drunkenly ranted at him a few years ago.  So I asked her what on earth he said.  Her eventual admission?  He said "I'm good thanks" and sailed right on past her when she asked him how he was to try to buy into a conversation.  :)  YES. Is it petty to be smug that he completely blew her off?  I mentally did a little chuckle.  This morning I finally casually told him about the conversation, his reaction "she said WHAT? :) what a little B*TCH!  you'd do so well to completely distance yourself from her!".

Having said all this, I miss the friendship before she started meddling or getting so narcissistic when the friendship was just so easy.  Maybe she'll mellow.  Meantime I'm going to a movie (gold class) with GF on Saturday belatedly for her bday.  I feel duplicitous but this is for her birthday and I won't be a tight arse - we'll get through this birthday gift then I'll sort things out with her or distance myself while she goes through this phase.  Meantime, Angel's been a great friend dare I say it, giving advice on car suppliers when i am about to go car shopping with a new friend, asking how I've been, excited for me about registering for studies.. and I'm not hanging my hopes on him, meantime I've been talking a bit with a guy who has been working away on site who I met on a dating site..dubious about any results off those sites though and meantime removed my profile putting it down to a holiday season whim and still have a crush on RogerRamjet (like the nickname? he's tall broadshouldered, chiselled features, but a really nice guy too..the separated guy).

Other than my usual "I loved it".  MM GF sat through a preview, both relating FAR too much to Kate's character, who is totally besotted with someone who doesn't care for her back.  I can't say I'm totally besotted any more or that I would bawl if Angel announced that he was engaged... (or buy him an expensive first edition of a book he loves! he's getting bupkis for his birthday tomorrow) but there were certainly similarities.  With the guy one minute smoozing up to her and emailing her gushily the next minute being totally unavailable (obviously due to an unwillingness to commit to her or really get involved WITH HER ..yes I get the message myself - already did).  GF being in her post-Scuba emailing the pic of his latest conquest mood, was self loathingly drawing a very clear comparison between herself and this character.

I have to say in both our defenses, we've both been in the shoes of Cameron Diaz's character as we're both firey, and no matter how much we take we'll both eventually pressure-cooker up to a full blown foul mood and let loose.  I think she's forgotten she has that side to her too.  :) 

ANYHOO as you can see, both of us found sections we could relate to.  I've already convinced myself that I'd moved on enough to make room in my life for the possibility of a nice guy.  Doesn't matter how much I do a nice-guy dance (instead of rain dance) or wish for it, I'm not bad enough to go out hunting but ...nothing's appeared and meantime the very charming but total lad, Angel has continued to be around, as a loyal friend if nothing else. 

SO.  The movie. Fantastic performances and I was totally envious of Cameron in her seduction scene (of the new love interest).  It brought back memories.. unfortunately all of them stale!  ;) 

INFAMOUS

I went to see this take on the Capote tale, about a week ago.  Again, fantastic intriguing performances, plenty of laughs, tears and sickening heartache stifled as well - I felt the rollercoaster of emotions, but wow talk about a young Marlon Brando performance by Mr Bond! and that was before I checked out Casino Royale which just cinched my opinion further.  Sandra Bullock also put aside her vanity to play the gawky authoress who is his best friend from Capote's childhood.  Daniel Craig's performance as the murderer on death row is stunning in it's rawness. But I'm biased but the perve too true.

heh heh.  GF asked me to go to see the latest Bond flick Casino Royale with her in Gold Class Cinema as Scuba had yet again totally upset her by sending a cruddy "I've met someone on Saturday, sorry can't see you any more and don't want you to go to my work christmas function either as she's sooo perfect I want to try to make this work.  HERE'S A PHOTO, SEE, SHE'S JUST SO SPECIAL HOW CAN I DO ANYTHING BUT DUMP YOU" kind of email.  I kid you not.  He was meant to have been going with her to the gold class movie as well, they'd booked it as a date last week.  What a ...nope I won't do it but you can imagine what I was thinking.  She had to step away from her computer upon reading that, to go into a meeting at work. 

SO we went to a nearby bar for a few wines and a gasbag and I tried to lighten the mood and silly things up to keep her mind off the recent shoddy behaviour of Scuba.  We then joined some of her posse at a nearby pub for a brief drink and that turned into a bunch of us deciding to go for dinner at an Indian restaurant.  YUMMY. 

We then had to fly out to the cinema for Casino Royale.  Yummy Yummy Yummy.  Daniel Craig is that his name?  I will be memorising it after seeing him also in Infamous on Sunday night at an outdoor cinema.  Yummy.  Masculine rather than this fad for wimpy "sophisticated" men.  rrrowrrl.  I liked that the movie had moved away from the cheesy stereotype into something a little more real while maintaining some of the hallmarks.  I'm sure some of the diehard fans will not be thrilled however.  GF fell asleep for a bit and quietly snored away to herself in her armchair til I woke her.  I think I got to bed around 12:45am.  THEN Max decides he's hardly seen me and needs to give me a welcome home present... a nasty big flying cocroach dropped at the foot of my bed.  Nice.  I had to get up around 2am to chase away a cockroach.

Ok I'll open this one up for comment and debate if you like. 

 I watched "The Wedding Dress" in the 2004 Italian Film Festival collection.  My weekly fix.  Oh boy (and not in a good way).  I switched it off without watching it all.  It's too thoroughly depressing.  perhaps it picks up but wow.  It shows a woman so over the moon happy at her upcoming wedding, a tryst with her fiance, then stays in a field by herself to read her study notes, the twilight is rolling in and 4 or 5 hunters come hunting her and she is pack raped.  The scene doesn't just insinuate it or suggest it, it shows it all. 

This is what offended me.  Is it meant to titillate us?  I think the only reason to put something so in your face or violent into a film is if it is meant to demonstrate just how bad it is.  I think the only people who could possibly think that it is NOT bad as an act, would have to be the kind of people that do it and surely it would only encourage them?  I certainly didn't need to be told that rape (whether gang or not) is horrible. The movie showed the whole scene - from further away but the whole thing.  I'm sure the movie is great and that that one scene was just one teeny portion of it, but it had its effect on me just from that scene and I had to switch it off.  I never do that.

Shadow of the Vampire

1 comment

in honour of Halloween, Pixie I know you and your favourite thing to do on Halloween after all, give this movie a go.

I work up on the 10th floor of a central city office building.  Occasionally I see random things of beauty out of random objects, which have been caught by the wind and animated by it almost like the wind is expressing itself.  Something as banal as a plastic bag becomes a description in the air of the way the wind is dancing around. 

Sometimes if I'm lucky, a tiny little bird will flit and swoop past my window for a bit, or a butterfly.  Things like that might sound silly and trivial but these little things are day brighteners for me and help me to mentally escape the freaky day I've been having for a second.