Movie of the year?

I'm convinced now it really was Madonna holding Guy Richie back. Apparently they split unofficially about a year ago, which would be when Guy started working on "Rocknrolla", his best film in years.



I saw a preview screening at Palace Nova last night and loved it. I'd rank it as my second favourite of his films, right behind Snatch, which I don't think will ever be topped just because of Brad Pitt's phenomenal performance.

The plot for "Rocknrolla" is exactly the same as the first few Richie films - several groups of criminals are involved in a series of schemes to rip each other off, and all of their storylines come together at the end of the film, typically resulting in a bloody shootout. Walking down Rundle Street after the movie I was saying to my friend Rebecca that I kind of like that all of these films are the same. It's like buying a Pearl Jam album - by now you know almost exactly what you're going to get, just a slight variation on the last record, but it's still great.

Most of the movies I've liked over the last twelve months have tended to be comedies, but this is by far the best movie I've seen that didn't involve Seth Rogen. If you liked "Snatch" and "Lock, Stock . . . " definitely make sure you see this one.

Way better than "Body of Evidence"

I was standing in the cinema foyer last night, waiting for my friend to arrive, when I realised I wasn't sure why I was there seeing "Body of Lies".

I hadn't seen a trailer, or even really heard what it was about. The only thing I'd seen was this poster, with Leo DiCaprio running somewhere, holding a gun. And I was sold.


The movie was pretty good, a lot better than "Burn After Reading", that's for damn sure.

Leo plays a CIA operative in the Middle East, fighting against the terrorists. Then he comes up with a plan to infiltrate their world by creating a fake terrorist operation, that the real terrorists will be impressed by, and possibly jealous of.

Russell Crowe plays a management type person back in Washington. Like most Australians I don't really care much for Russ, and he didn't do anything to change my mind in this. Vince Collossimo is also in it, as Leo's assistant.

There's a few fantastic scenes, including a great chase through the desert, with bad guys in 4WDs chasing Leo and his partner, and helicopters picking off the bad guys with rockets at the same time. It is a bit long, kind of like American Gangster, so does slow up a bit a few times. Still for what it is it's pretty good, and I don't think too many people would regret going to see it.

Burn After Reading

Last night I went to the Picadilly Theatre at North Adelaide for the first time in years, and saw "Burn After Reading". It is not a movie I would recommend to you.

To start off with though, it's so weird in that cinema, it's kind of stuck in a timewarp. You're almost surprised they're showing current movies there. It's dead quiet, and I kind of expected the place to shut down permanently sometime during the screening.

I wasn't expecting much from the movie itself, but Mirjana was keen to see it, and I generally like at least 50% of the Cohen brothers' movies. This was completely different to "No Country For Old Men" - it was more along the lines of "Fargo" - a comedy about stupid people, interspersed with sudden acts of violence.

Fargo was funny though, this was not. Brad Pitt was mildy amusing in his portrayal of a male bimbo, and I did like the head CIA guy (played by the Dad from Juno). John Malkovich didn't do anything for me, and Frances McDormand seems to be permanently annoying. I wonder what she's like in real life.

Tonight I'm seeing "Body of Lies", and hoping that's a lot better.

Best use of music . . .

In a movie or tv show since the "Last Goodbye" scene in "Vanilla Sky"

Rocknrolla

Guy Ritchie used to be one of my favourite film directors - within a few years he made "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch", one of my top-10 movies of all time. Unfortunately, he went off and married Madonna, and everything went downhill. He made a movie with his new bride which was universally-loathed, and then followed up with a movie that I don't think even got a DVD release here.

He's got a new one coming out now though, and I'm hoping it's a return to his earlier work. He's ditched Madonna which is a good sign, although I guess they were technically married while he was making this, so maybe she jinxed it.

Anyway, I got some tickets to the preview next week and will go along. I'm pumped that the film stars both Ari Gold and Avon Barksdale, that should be cool. I'm not expecting Snatch Part 2, but the early reviews haven't been horrible so it's worth a shot.

Fantasy Draft

So yesterday we held our fantasy basketball draft. Now that I'm a little older and birthdays and Christmas have lost their appeal a bit, this day is a solid contender for my favourite day of the year.

Unfortunately, we had a few no shows - Corey was looking after a few kids and a sick partner, and Adam was MIA, possibly still somewhere in Europe. There were also some technical MSN Messenger related issues. Still, we got there in the end, and everyone had a good time. Other than Dylan presumably, who endured about 100 jokes about his upcoming gay holiday.

I was pretty prepared for the draft, but things never go as you think they will. The players I was hoping to get in the 7th and 8th rounds went in the 5th and 6th - not sure if my expectations were unrealistic, or guys were just really reaching. I did end up getting a nice surprise when Iverson fell to me with the 12th pick, I wasn't expecting that at all.


It's standard practice that everyone loves their team immediately after the draft. I think it's called "drafterglow". I don't really feel any attachment to a lot of my players though. They weren't guys that I was planning on getting, I just felt like I couldn't pass them up at the spots I took them.

After the draft James and Forcey hung around for pizza and NBA 2K9. James beat us both repeatedly, presumably because he's a member of Generation Y, and they're good at computer games and stuff. I finally beat him in the last game, but it took overtime, and two buzzer beaters to get there (including a ridiculous Derek Fisher three over Greg Oden).

Ahh Asian people . . .

Good at cooking, bad at driving . . . and spelling.

Scars On Broadway

Checking out the lineup to Soundwave Festival I noticed a band I hadn't heard of before, Scars on Broadway. Closer inspection revealed they were comprised of two members of System of a Down - the guitarist/singer, and drummer, who formed the group as a side-project from SOAD. I've always been a bit of a fan of theirs, so downloaded the album and was pleasantly surprised.

It doesn't veer all that far from System, with the middle-eastern influences and weird-singing, but it's definitely more alternative-rock based than metal, which I think is a good thing. I don't love the singer's voice, but the tunes do stick in your head, underneath everything they're actually quite poppy. The songs are short too which is nice, no point going on and on when you've made your point.

A few drawbacks - as mentioned, I don't love this guy's voice, and on some of the weaker tracks it gets annoying. Also, some of it is quite coarse. Unnecessarily so.

Nevertheless, this is a pretty good album and hasn't left my car stereo in a week. And the best part is they're playing the Soundwave festival here next February, which I'm planning on attending, so seeing them will be an added bonus.

Here's their single "They Say".

Parental guidance is recommended.

Poker night

So I rock up to Josh's for poker night last night, and let's just say the standard of play was lacking a little. With no money on the line, some players were playing some ridiculous hands. In fact, I think we had three all ins in the first four hands.

There were nine players in total - Josh, his wife Sally, Narelle and I, as well as Josh's brother Wes and his wife Sascha, a guy I knew from Portside called Ben, old Seaton guy (and current stalker of Michella's housemate Amy) Bin, and another guy called Aaron. All nice people, some of them not so hot at cards though.

Actually Josh and Sally were decent, and Wes played a few good hands. But for the rest, the combination of no idea and no financial incentive meant some crazy hands were played. After seeing guys going all in at the start of the night with hands like Queen - Eight, I held back for a long time. I don't think I won a hand in the first half hour. Eventually though I started to get some decent cards, and knocked a few of the weaker players out. Came down to Narelle, Sally and I, although by this stage I had a pretty big stack, and finished it off quite quickly.

A nice night out, but I wouldn't be missing a game with my regular group for this anytime soon.

Friday afternoon update

At lunch today I picked up NBA 2k9 for my PS3. I was almost swayed in the store when I saw NBA Live 09 offers a new feature where you can play as one of 24 international teams, meaning I could presumably play as Australia, and re-enact the Olympics, losing to the rest of the world. Then I remembered that for the last few years the NBA Live series has been really bad, and so went with 2K9. I'd be looking forward to firing it up tonight, except . . .


I have a poker game at my friend Josh Poyzer's place. Never played with his crew before, but he's told me they don't play for money. That's a noble idea and all but in my experience it doesn't work. Noone plays seriously if money isn't involved. Still, even if the poker sucks, I've got a six-pack of Coopers Dark Ale and a pack of Lime and Cracked Pepper chips, so I'm sure the night will be at least a moderate success.

For some reason people have been stealing from me lately. To start off with it was my mail - I haven't been receiving my magazine subscriptions since moving house (and yes, I did update my details). Now though it's my breakfast. I bought two Iced Coffees yesterday morning (just $4.50 at my local servo), with the intention of having one then, and saving the second one till today. When I went to our fridge at work this morning though it had disappeared. I don't understand who would steal something like that from their colleague?

Had the family round to dinner last night and cooked butter chicken. Definitely adding this one to my rotation. So simple - just chicken breast, butter, cream, and packet mix. And since most of those things come from nature it must be healthy too. Best part is the taste - not as good as restaurant butter chicken, but better than food court butter chicken.


That Batman movie sure is popular. Got to the movies on Tuesday night and saw the 8.30pm screening had already sold out - at 7pm - and this is months after it was released. Good movie and all, but wouldn't you have seen it by now if you were keen?

Technology

So last night I went to turn on my laptop, and rather than start up, it came up with some message telling me it was re-installing the operating system. Twenty minutes later, it was ready to go, minus all of the photos/music/additional programs I'd accumulated on my hard drive this year.

Luckily I backed up all my photos to CD a few weeks ago so didn't lose all of them. However, I did lose all of the music I'd ripped to my computer, as well as all of the additional programs that you need these days (itunes, divx player, nero etc). It's pretty frustrating considering the computer is only six months or so old.

Also, even though it says Windows Vista is the operating system, what I see on my screen looks suspiciously like Windows 95. It seems to be working now so I guess I'll leave it and begin the process of downloading all that extra stuff I need, and re-populating my itunes library. I probably should check for spyware, I can't see any other reason that something like this might have happened.

Step Brothers

Last night I went to Marion to see "Step Brothers" with my friend Mirjana. I knew going in it wasn't going to be the best movie, but thought it would have a few laugh out loud moments.



It did, and was actually funnier than I thought it would be. Like Forcey pointed out in his review, Will Ferrell tries a lot of pretty crazy stuff comedically, and some of it works, and some falls flat. It's all pretty far fetched, throughout the film the two main characters seem to go from being reasonably self-aware to borderline retarded at different times. The movie had some great stuff in it though, my favourite parts were the a cappella family singalong to "Sweet Child O Mine", and the scenes where Ferrell and Reilly went to job interviews together.

Perhaps the funniest thing to happen though was we got to see a couple of kids get kicked out of the cinema by an usher for being under 15. I'd never seen it happen before but it was strangely enjoyable, like watching underage kids get busted for trying to buy alcohol or cigarettes. Some of their friends who must have shown ID to prove they were 15 were allowed to stay, in the spirit of true friendship they did exactly that, remaining for the movie while their younger friends presumably waited outside.

Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in

I kind of figured I was done with music festivals, but heard about the Soundwave Festival in Adelaide next February and think I'll give it a go.

Nine Inch Nails are headlining, and Alice in Chains are performing too, which will be quite a feat seeing as their singer died like a decade or so ago. Apparently they've got a new guy now though, and the guitarist did a lot of the singing anyway, so should be good.



It's not the kind of thing I can see myself staying at all day - the rest of the bands fall in the hardcore/metal/punk genre, and so I'm guessing I'll get sick of all the emo kids with their full sleeve tattoos, long fringes, and razor-blade scarred limbs. But I don't think I can pass up the chance to see Alice In Chains, one of my favourite bands from the 90s.

Anyone want to join me?

Avocado on a Quarter Pounder???

I went down to Marion this morning to get a CD player installed in my car at JB Hi-Fi. The guy told me it would take about 45 minutes, so I figured I had two options - shopping or eating. I chose the latter.

Went up to the food court thinking I'd get a donut from Donut King, but those guys have gone crazy with their prices. I settled on Maccas, and told myself it would be a combination breakfast/lunch.

So I'm standing there waiting to order, and I notice that they now offer avocado on their Quarter Pounders. That, to me, is a very strange thing to do. I'm probably biased because I hate avocado, but I don't see how those two things would mix at all.

Thankfully there is some sanity evident in the bigwigs who run McDonalds = they've reduced the cost of the apple pies back to $1, like they were back in the 80s. At that price I figured I couldn't really say no.

Team building day

So we had our team building day yesterday, and there were no quad bikes to be seen. Nor Go Karts. Instead, we went on a bus trip to Monarto. Awesome.

We got there about 10ish, and had a half hour update, then did a getting to know each other exercise. We went round the room, and everyone said their name, how long they'd been with the organisation, and something they were passionate about. I said "Music", most other people said stuff like "Changing perceptions of South Australia interstate" or "Developing regional communities through tourism."

After this we did the next best thing to quad-biking - we had someone come in and give us a two hour course in "stakeholder management". Once he was done, we had a barbecue lunch, which was actually quite delicious.

After lunch we did the bus tour of the grounds, which would have been better if I hadn't already done it with Michella last year.

Finally, the day concluded with us being split up into groups to each make a 30-second tv ad for Monarto. Or basically do a thirty second play, like you might do on the last night of a camp. Ours wasn't particularly funny, although a few were. Much of the humour seemed to be based on gay-jokes. I'm 95% sure none of the people there were gay.

We got back on the bus around 4pm, and were back in Adelaide just after 5pm. Not a terrible day by any means, but definitely lacking the element of fun I was expecting.

Saving the world

I had someone come to my door last night collecting for charity. I don't get a lot of visitors, so got a little excited when I heard the knock on the door. Sadly, it was just someone who wanted my money.

She explained that she was collecting for some international wildlife fund, and this year they were collecting for the River Murray too. She asked me if I cared about those things, and even though I don't really, I said I did. It's not that I'm anti-wildlife or the environment - it's just that I think there are more important things to focus on. Like people for example. If someone said to me "We've got a rare polar bear here, and a human, and we're going to kill one of them, which one would you like to save?" I'm taking the human every time. Just common sense really. Let's solve the people problems first, then we'll deal with the animals.


So I tell her to hold on, I'll just go find my wallet. I grab it and realise I've only got twenties, and no way do I care about polar bears that much. So I ask if she has change.

And she tells me that it's not that type of thing, she's not actually collecting money now, just "signing people up". She tells me I fill in this form, and then at the end of the month, I send them all the loose change that I've put aside. I figured that was something I could deal with, I do hate having a bunch of coins in my wallet, so I agree to take the form. Then I notice that there are details for my bank account or credit card details. Turns out, when she said "you give us your loose change", she actually meant "give us your bank account details, so we can siphon money from your account every month."

Of course, that wasn't going to fly, so I politely explained that it didn't really sound like my thing, and wished her a good night.

It was the second time in the last week someone had asked me for money in convoluted, creative manner, and I'm not a fan. I got a phone call from Mumbai a few nights ago where the caller started off by saying that my phone number had been randomly selected and I had won a free mobile phone. Of course they were trying to sell me on a phone plan. Just once I'd like to hear someone ring and say "I'm gonna be totally honest with you, I'm going to try and convince you to change your current telecommunications provider." It's possible I'd still hang up on them, but it would be a more pleasant experience for both of us.