Movie reviews

I've been the movies twice in the last few days, and saw two very different films.

Saturday night I went down to Semaphore and saw "Evan Almighty". It was pretty good. Following on from "Bruce Almighty", Morgan Freeman once again plays God, and speaks to Evan Baxter - played by Steve Carrell - telling him to build an ark like Noah did. Which he does. That's pretty much the movie (it's only 85 minutes long), but there's some good stuff in there that makes you think about the awesome size and power of God, but also his personal interest in each of his children. Steve Carell is good as always, and it's rated G, so if you've got kids, you could take them to this without risking scarring them for life.


Last night I went down to Arndale and saw "Superbad", a movie you probably wouldn't take your kids to, unless you had perhaps attended the Britney school of parenting. I wouldn't normally go see things like this (I'm kind of too old to be watching movies about high school) but there were two factors that swayed me towards it. First of all, it was by the guys who did "The Forty Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up", two films that I thought were really funny, and quite sweet considering the subject matter. Secondly, it had received really good reviews, which is pretty rare for a film in this genre.


Anyway, it was a good film, and laugh out loud funny in parts. As mentioned, it's not one for the kids though, or even easily offended adults. Everyone else should love it.

My Tuesday morning whinge

I don't like the new tramline extension. I don't see the point. I haven't had anyone successfully explain to me why we need it. It's kind of like the "why we can't have daylight savings all the time" argument. I've heard the reasons (something to do with farmers I think. And possibly cows). They just sound insignificant when considering the greater good.

I'm not sure if traffic will improve down North Terrace once the construction is over and the trams are in, but at the moment it's terrible. One of the things I love about Adelaide is that I can drive my car through the CBD and not have a nervous breakdown. Anyone who has been a passenger in my car while driving in Melbourne would tell you that's not always the case. Anyway it took me about ten minutes this morning to get from the West Terrace/North Terrace intersection to the David Jones car park. And that's just too long.

If we need a tram extension (and obviously as someone who doesn't take the tram, I don't think we do), I don't know why it has to go all the way onto North Terrace down to the uni. Uni students should be encouraged to walk. Back when I was younger we used to do that all the time. Kids are spoiled these days though.

Tori and "Pip"

A bit of a delayed review, but a review nevertheless.

Last Thursday Tori hit Adelaide, and of course I was always going to be there. Sure her new album isn't the best, and she has a worldview which could diplomatically be described as "unique", but come on, she wrote "Winter". As if I wasn't going to go.

Pre concert, we dined at the Port Dock Brewery. For the second time in a fortnight I had the beef schnitzel with dianne gravy, and I wasn't disappointed. Alen and Narelle had schnitzels too. I don't know why they bother having such an extensive menu. If I was running the place I would cut it down to schnitzels, salt and pepper squid, and perhaps a salad for the ladies.

We got to Thebby a little after 8pm, and the opening act had already started. They weren't really good. Michella asked if I wanted to go across the road to the BP so she could get something to eat, and that sounded way better than staying and listening to these guys. We got back just before they finished, and then waited another 20 minutes or so as the stage was set for Tori.

She came on at around 8.50 or so, dressed as "Pip". On her latest album, she adopts a number of different personas to sing the different songs, and she's been opening each of her concerts dressed as one of these characters. Pip is obviously the angry one, as she snarled her way through the opening set, and left the stage giving us all the finger. Classy. She did play a few of her heavier songs though which was cool, especially "Cruel" which she opened with.


Several minutes after "Pip" stormed off the stage, Tori appeared, and the second part of the concert commenced. I generally enjoyed it, although she didn't play a lot of the songs I was really keen on hearing, like "Winter", "Iieee", "Josephine", "Playboy Mommy" . . . the list goes on.


She did play "Spark" which I hadn't expected, and this was probably the highlight. Another plus was the length of the show, she didn't leave the stage until just after 11pm, so played for a little more than two hours. Which I suppose you'd expect given that tickets were $120.

Anyway, a solid show, I'd rank it as a B+.

What year is it again?

Back in the mid to late nineties, the shaved head look was reasonably popular. In fact, I think pretty much everyone in our posse had one at one stage or another, with the possible exception of Whelie. These days, its popularity as an accepted hairstyle is waning. I'm hoping to bring it back.

Wednesday update

I got tickets to see Gyroscope this morning. Come 4 November Murray, Narelle and I are going to be enjoying the best rock show of the year. Anyone else want to go?

We held our fantasy basketball draft order lottery over lunch today. The lowest possible pick I could have got was 11th, I got 10th. Not good times, although at least I shouldn't hear any complaints this year about the lottery being rigged.

I just made my first purchase yesterday on www.strawberrynet.com. It's funny, I still feel like a man though.

Looking forward to Tori Amos tomorrow night. It looks like she's doing a good mix of her repertoire, and playing with her full band, so I'm expecting this to be a fantastic show.

I didn't see the Emmys, but I heard Sopranos, Extras, Entourage and The Office all won. I love it when my tastes correspond with those of professional critics.

Killing yourself to live (my City to Bay Fun Run experience)

I can now add the "City to Bay Fun Run" to the list of my lifetime accomplishments (right between "Hired 700 movies from Atlantic Video" and "Lived with Paul Force for a year without once suffering from food poisoning").

Waking up Sunday morning I was a little apprehensive. I hadn't had a lot of sleep the last few nights, and I'm not a morning person at the best of times. Nor had I trained much in the last fortnight. Once we got in to town though, I started to feel a little bit better. There was a great atmosphere waiting in Elder Park for the race to start, surrounded by 23,000 competitors. Amazingly, there were 4,000 more women than men (OK maybe it's not amazing, but I thought it was interesting at least).


The elite runners (those expecting to finish the race in less than 50 minutes) went first, we didn't cross the line until about 8.10am. The first km wasn't too hard, but I was surprised that some competitors had dropped back to walking by the end of King William Street.


I decided the night before that I was going to take my camera with me to capture the event. I figured it couldn't be that much heavier than my ipod, which I had to leave behind so that Dad would have someone to chat to during the race. I'm glad I brought it along, it allowed me to take photos like this one, which I took at the 2km mark.


Just kidding, that was just a km or so out from the end, as you can probably tell by the look on my face of exhaustion crossed with pure terror.

There were a heap of interesting things along the way. Probably every km or so there was a band, including one rock band that was made up of 8-9 year old kids. They were pretty good too.

About half way along I came up behind a large woman in a wheelchair. I was rather impressed with the speed she was travelling at, until I realised that she was in an electric wheelchair. So basically she was just going for a ride. The funny thing was, as I passed her I took a look back to see that she was sweating! From just pushing forward the little toggle on her wheelchair that makes it go . . .

The run itself was reasonably difficult, mainly I think because I pushed myself a bit harder than normal. In my training I'd been running at 10km hour, which would have meant a finish in about 72 minutes, but we ended up crossing the line in a little over 65. Once we turned the corner from Jetty Road and we could see the finish line I started sprinting - much harder than normal when you're surrounded by hundreds of other people. I may have pushed someone out of the way as I came through, it was hard to tell.

I read today that the winner ran it in a little over 34 minutes which is a pretty awesome achievement. By my calculations that works out to around 17 seconds per 100 metres, which means pretty close to a sprint the entire way. I kind of wish I could have seen the first two runners come in along the final km, in the end there was only two seconds separating them.

It probably sounds stupid, but it's actually a really good feeling having random strangers clapping for you and cheering as you run past. Normally I would make fun of people who do this (kind of like the woman on Seinfeld who once cheered on the competitors in the New York Marathon by screaming "You're all winners!"), but when you're actually there it makes much more sense.

I'm pretty keen to do the run again next year. I'll see how I go with my running until then, but I'd be happy if I could finish in under an hour next time.

In the news today

Boat propeller strikes boy in face
Monday Sep 17 08:30 AEST

A Gold Coast teenager was struck in the face by a boat propellor when he fell out of a dinghy while baring his buttocks at people on the shore.

The 17-year-old boy from Kanimbla was one of three males travelling in a dinghy along a canal off Huon Street at Broadbeach Waters on the Gold Coast about 4pm (AEST) yesterday.

It is believed all three males stood up to bare their buttocks at a group of people at a waterfront residence, causing the vessel to become unstable, and all three fell overboard, police said.

The engine on the dinghy continued to run, and the teenager was struck in the face by the propeller as the empty vessel circled.

Another occupant of the boat, a 20-year-old man from Rochedale South, in Brisbane's south, has been charged with drink driving.

He will appear in Southport Magistrates Court on October 1.

Something For Kate

Friday night I attended a Something For Kate concert. I think it was probably my eighth or ninth, I lost track a while ago. They're certainly not my favourite band, but they are local so are reasonably cheap and easy to see so Narelle and I probably see them an average of once a year.

Friday night's show was one of the best I'd seen in a while. Typically when you go and see a band they are touring in support of their new album, so at least half of their set is comprised of new material. Which often isn't as good as their classic stuff. This tour though Something For Kate are promoting their new "Greatest Hits" album, so right from the start, they were just focusing on their best songs. I think they played three songs off of "Beautiful Sharks" in the first half hour.

I think the highlight was their cover of Elliott Smith's "Waltz #2". It's a great song anyway, and they did a fantastic version, with just Paul on acoustic guitar and Pip accompanying him on violin. This is pretty standard for a Something For Kate show - even though I like their original material, the best moments tend to be when they pull out the cover songs. It's probably a combination of the arrangements they come up with, as well as the fact that they pick really great, and well known songs to do - the last few times I've seen them they've perfomed "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash, "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen, "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen, "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen, "Ashes to Ashes" by David Bowie, "Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty . . . just a great list of songs.

If I had to rate this amongst the concerts I've seen in the past few weeks I'd say it was my favourite. The venue (Fowlers Live) is a good one, and it's nice to be able to stand in relative comfort four metres away from the front of the stage. The setlist was a good mix of songs from all of their albums, and the performance was very solid. A class evening through and through.

Next up . . .Tori Amos.

Rocking out in style

Last night I saw Snow Patrol at the Entertainment Centre, and for the first time, observed the action at a rock concert from a corporate box (thanks Narelle).

It didn't exactly all go to plan, but it beat fighting off the kiddies in the mosh pit - and considering it was free I'm not in a position to complain anyway.

Our tickets said 8pm, so we figured that this meant that either the doors opened at 8pm or the first support act (Iain Archer) went on then. So we turned up at about 8.15pm, and found that dinner (which we were unaware was on offer) was served at 7.15pm in our box, and the first support act went on at 7.30pm. Making things worse, dinner was apparently a few curries, chicken burgers, wedges, and veal, which sounded pretty good to me; and the first support act ended up being Silversun Pickups, who I actually like, rather than Iain Archer, whom I've never heard of (apparently they swapped spots for some reason at the last minute). I'm not sure which was a bigger disappointment, although the fact that I'd already eaten probably means it was missing the band.

Anyway, upon arriving at the Entertainment Centre we were shown to the entrance to the corporate boxes, and then followed a seemingly endless maze of corridors until we got to our box. I quickly lost all sense of direction. We finally got to our box, walked through, and took our seats. The problem was that the seats were just behind the side of the stage, and way behind the speakers, so all we heard was a little bit of vocals and drums. Not good times.

We sat through Iain Archer in this spot, and it was pretty bad. He seemed to be pretty average anyway, so it wasn't such an issue, but I was hoping things were going to improve for Snow Patrol.

At the end of this set we went back into the box, where more food had been brought out - donut holes, and some melting moments cookies. The cookies were pretty nice - nothing compared to the ones Karen Crouch makes but very passable nevertheless. Someone said we had the option of being moved to another part of the arena if we wanted, and I was immediately in. I chanelled my inner George Costanza and stuffed a few last cookies into the pocket of my hoodie, and we followed an usher back through the labyrinth.

We ended up in the first row of seats up from the General Admission floor area, directly in front of the stage, with a good view and great sound. A few minutes later Snow Patrol took to the stage.

The performance was OK. I'm not really sure what I expected, but it was probably about as good as I could have hoped for. I think Snow Patrol are an above average band, with a few really good songs, and a lot of average to good ones. I doubt they'll ever be really great, they're just a little to derivative of bands like U2, or even Coldplay. But they played a pretty tight set, in some ways it was a bit too slick - they rarely deviated from the album version of their songs. They did bring out one of the backing singers from the support band to do the Martha Wainwright part in "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" which was one of the highlights for me.

Anyway, I did enjoy the concert, I just didn't love it. For now it ranks second behind Ryan Adams on my 2007 concert season rankings - where will it rank next week? Check back and find out . . .

A few quick recommendations

I found a copy of Jose Gonzales' new album "In Our Nature" on the interweb last night. At first listen it's pretty good. There's a good cover of "Teardrop" by Massive Attack which is probably my early favourite. This guy is actually pretty good with covers, over his last few ep's he's covered Springsteen, Kylie and Joy Division. Kind of like Something for Kate, I often end up liking his covers better than his original songs.


This isn't so much a recommendation, as much as a wish list - the new ipods are out, and I want one. Or two.

At the moment I own two ipods - a 30gb black video one, and an orange 1gb shuffle. I can't seem to place the shuffle at the moment, but I'm sure it will turn up (the fact that it's roughly the size of a 50% piece means it's easily misplaced. And my house is rather messy these days). So if you were to rate my need for an ipod, it would be pretty low by any measure you used.

But I saw the new models this week that they're releasing, and they look great.

You've got the new touch screen ipod, which has a full length colour screen, and internet connectivity. Basically it's an iphone without the phone, which is fine with me.


Then the new nanos, which seem like they are smaller than the last model, but now have video screens too. How cool is that?

Is it the shoes?

As everyone knows, the last good pair of Jordans made by Nike were the XI's. In terms of comfort, performance and style, some people consider them to be the best basketball shoes ever made. I've always wanted a pair, but never got around to picking them up. Until now.

I got these at work today after winning an ebay auction last Friday I think. Pretty amazing considering the package came from China, must have been a slow mail week.


Anyway I'll give them their first real workout Thursday night. We're taking on the top team so it's probably going to take a little more than great shoes to get us the win though.

Swingers

So I went dancing last night.

Actually, I took a swing dancing class. I thought it might be perhaps like it Swingers, with Trent and Mikey and Heather Graham. It wasn't, but it was pretty good fun anyway.

The main problems going in were that a) I can't really dance, but also b) I don't have any rhythm (which I think is pretty much essential). I mustn't have been oozing confidence as I was told numerous times that I looked nervous. I guess I was.

I thought you'd just dance with the partner you came with all night, but you actually switched every couple of minutes. That seemed like a better deal for the other guys there than for me, as my date was by far the best looking girl there. Probably the only one with her original hips too. Although it was funny dancing with some of the older women, and have them almost tell me off . . ."You were meant to hold onto me there" or "Don't hold your hand so high". A number of times we would get half way through a routine we had just been taught and I would get a complete mental blank as to what I would have to do next. So I would just stand there as my partner would have a horrified "You're supposed to be leading me" look on her face.

After a while I kind of picked up what I was meant to be doing though. Especially when dancing with the instructor, who made it a lot simpler. Will I be back again? Who knows . . . but at least I can add it to the list of things I've done once. And I now have a new appreciation for Jon Favreau, that stuff is harder than it looks.

Quote of the week

From "The Office" . . .

Michael Scott: A boss is like a teacher. And I am like the cool teacher, like Mr. Handell. Mr. Handell would hang out with us and he would tell us awesome jokes and he actually hooked up with one of the students. And then like 12 other kids came forward . . . it was in all the papers. Really ruined eighth grade for us.

Protests are stupid

Walking to my car last night I passed a demonstration in Rundle Mall, next to the Malls Balls. It was comprised of around 25 or 30 people, most of them holding up home made placards. Some of them were "Stop Climate Change" and others "Out of Iraq Now", but most were just generally about how they didn't like George Bush or John Howard.

What was weird (and I'm someone who thinks most protests are kind of a little weird anyway - outside of millions of people gathering together, I tend to think they are a huge waste of time), is that the leader of the protest (the guy who had a small bullhorn instead of a home made placard) was leading the crowd in a "Go home George Bush" chant.

Seeing as the guy is currently 2,000km away in Sydney, that seemed a little futile. Can't really see an aide pulling him aside to say "I don't want to alarm you sir, but there are two dozen people in Adelaide who would like it if you go home. Yes, Adelaide, it's on the other side of the country. Should I fuel up Air Force One?"

Best concerts of all time part three

Queens of the Stone Age, Thebarton Theatre, 2004

I used to love these guys. For maybe a year or two they were my favourite band. I'm not really sure what happened, I guess I don't listen to as much heavy music as I used to. And their albums got progressively worse after "Songs for the Deaf", I think I've only listened to their newest one a few times, and wasn't really impressed. Of course this decline in the quality of their music correlates with Josh kicking Nick out of the band, and I think that's probably a big part of it. They were never ultra-diverse, but within the confines of a heavy rock band they did manage to include some variety, thanks mainly to a revolving trio of vocalists - Josh, Nick and Mark Lanegan. Take away Nick and you lose all of the heavy, fast punk songs. Mark has kind of pulled back in recent years too, to concentrate on his solo career and being a drug addict, so they don't do as many of the slower, lower-key songs either.

They were all here at this concert in 2004 though, and it was an amazing show. I'd seen them about a year earlier at the Big Day Out, and they were pretty good there. Unfortunately, Nick had decided that would be one of the shows he would play without clothes, and that put a bit of a dampener on the experience for me. I took Narelle to their Thebby show, and think I may have actually prayed on the way there that Nick would wear pants this time. I'm pleased to report that he did.

They were really tight, even though they spent a lot of the evening performing extended jams. The highlights were the appearances of Mark, every now and then he'd saunter out from backstage, stand in front of a mic for a few songs, and belt out one of his trademark gravelly vocals, looking and sounding like he was going to collapse at any moment.

The support act The Distillers were really good, probably the best support act I've ever seen. Their singer sounded exactly like Courtney Love, and her band basically sounded like a more distorted "Live Through This" era Hole.

Doing my best Tony Soprano impersonation

Courtesy of Mirjana