Choke

Sam Rockwell, a sex addict and scammer, cares for his mother, Anjelica Huston who is afflicted with Alzheimer's Disease. They have a close relationship following years of scamming and keeping one step ahead of detection. But Huston no longer recognises her son and Rockwell is desperate to learn the secret of his paternity. He develops a relationship with Kelly McDonald who he meets at the institution where his mother resides.

Not exactly a movie for faint hearts. The film is packed with scenes of sexual activity, women's breasts, the confronting behaviour of demented women and people choking on their food. There is some humour, principally in relation to Rockwell's workplace, a colonial American theme park, where the workers are expected to behave and speak according to colonial times.

Aerobatics

(Click photo to enlarge.)

I don't know why but these three planes were doing tight flights circling Sydney Harbour yesterday afternoon. This photo taken from the balcony of my apartment.

"You know me, don't you?"

Last night I accompanied Ae to her volunteer organisation's annual cocktail party. It was a sweltering evening with the temperature still at 34c when we arrived at 6pm.

It was an odd affair. We arrived to a keyboard player serenading us in the lobby (not so unusual) and then were shepherded into the function room which had been set up as an auditorium where for the next hour we sat through a type of annual meeting complete with guest speaker and website demonstration. Ae, a primary school teacher no less, constantly whispered loud asides to me during the meeting ("what a poor speaker" and "a terrible presenter" etc) in behaviour I am sure she wouldn't tolerate in her own classroom. I had to admit, though, that the keynote speaker was not very good. The topic of the keynote speech was "Changing Times" which the speaker addressed with examples of what hadn't changed over time.

At the end of that meeting we received a gift package (a copy of the annual review and a pen!) and then were marshalled back into the foyer for an hour of drinks and nibblies (ahhh, finally a cocktail party). The sparkling wine must have gone to Ae's head quickly for she introduced me multiple times to other guests. "You know Victor, don't you", Ae asked one unfortunate woman four times over drinks.

As we drove away, we soaked in the benefits of a southerly change that had arrived in the two hours we were at the party dropping the temperature to about 15c.

How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

Simon Pegg is the inept trashy British celebrity magazine journalist who is recruited by Jeff Bridges' high powered New York publisher to work on his publication under the tutelage of Kirsten Dunst and Danny Huston.

The notion that someone of Pegg's incompetence would be recruited to an influential New York publishing house is unlikely. Pegg's character is given the words to explain it away but I found it even more unlikely that he would be retained in the job as long as he is, given the initial impression he conveys in the workplace.

You have to swallow a big dose of disbelief watching this film through to its conclusion. Whilst the film takes some strange twists, the eventual outcome is always obvious. Pegg is quite humorous somewhat in the style of Ricky Gervais in The Office. He also is quite a dab hand at dancing viewed from my perspective as a gay man with two left feet.

That wonderful British character actress, Miriam Margolyes, who we love not only because she is an unabashed Lesbian but because she has taken up residence and citizenship in Australia has a funny turn as Pegg's New York landlady.

A bit of a nonsense film but quite humorous.

UPDATE: I have read since that the film is adapted from a book about a British journalist's ill-fated stint with Vanity Fair. Mmmmmm...truth is stranger than fiction.

My towelhead dilemma

(Artwork - Raphael Perez)

I mentioned a dilemma when I watched Towelhead. I was uncomfortable watching the scenes depicting sexual activity with the thirteen year old girl. This seemed a natural aversion given that I am not sexually attracted to children or youth. I am grateful that I don't have that particular demon to battle.

However, as the film progressed my mind turned to my own history. I was very naive when I progressed through puberty and yet my own sexual activity commenced at the age of twelve. I know now that I didn't really understand much about sex then but the urge was strong, the enjoyment was irresistible and so I pursued sexual activity at every opportunity.

At that tender age, my sexual contacts were all with older males; probably all of them adults although my memory of them, other than 'my first', is non existent now. It never occurred to me at the time that I might have seduced any of these men nor that any of them might be taking advantage of, let alone abusing, me. Nor did I give much thought to the illegality of the behaviour.

So, as Towelhead raised memories that frankly never worried me before, was my discomfort a feeling of guilt or a sense of hypocrisy or have I just grown up?

How the world might vote?

It is less than a week to the US Presidential election. The results are not just relevant to the United States; the outcome impacts on most of the rest of the world.

This site is an interesting picture of how the world might vote if everyone were eligible to do so. The country by country results are fascinating.

Towelhead

Well, I can't say that I had no forewarning.

The reviews and articles I read on Towelhead made it clear this was a story about a 13 years old girl discovering her sexuality with (amongst others) an adult neighbour.

Although the sexual moments are not shown explicitly, there is no doubt what is being depicted and in those moments of the movie I literally squirmed in my seat, uncomfortable with the confronting nature of the storyline. Those moments aside, I felt the film presented a very telling picture of cultural ignorance and intolerance. It also vividly showed how males can take advantage of and, in the wider sense, abuse females.

The audience at the session I attended was mainly senior citizens with a majority of females. No one walked out of the movie nor did I notice any restlessness amongst that audience so I believe that, like me, they accepted the movie as a serious representation not some salacious potboiler.

This is not a film for those who prefer their movies be 'entertaining' rather than challenging the viewer. Interestingly, I felt a dilemma in my reaction to this film which I will post about separately.

Sydney Life

Today is the last day of Sydney Life, an annual photography competition held in Hyde Park as part of Art and About which celebrates Sydney's spirit by bringing art to the streets and public spaces. The photographs are enlarged and displayed on huge canvases along the central north/south walkway of Hyde Park under a canopy of trees. It was beautiful this morning when I wandered through the display and as usual there were attractive bystanders to complement the artwork and, happily, to wander into my photograph as well.

(As usual, click photographs to enlarge.)



The north/south walkway.

The following are four of the many photographs that took my fancy. The descriptions beneath each is taken from the free guide to the display issued by the City of Sydney Council.


At Sculpture by the Sea by Sally McInerny.

Sandcastles and dogs at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2007.


South of the Border by George Roukis.

In southern Sydney, the "Shire" is home to many local surfers. They spend their lives here, often having little to do with the rest of Sydney.


Clown Doctors by Adrian Cook.

Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick.



Redfern Park by Alina Gozin'a.

Parks are a place where kids play, make trouble and grow up. Their friendship is strong and real, providing stability in their young turbulent lives.

The phoney options

My mobile phone ('cell phone' for any North Americans who have strayed onto this site) sort of died on Thursday night aged two years. This is the second mobile phone in succession to die on me.

Well, it may not have been dead but the on/off button no longer on'ed or off'ed. This might not have been a problem if the phone had been on at the time I noticed the malfunction but as the phone was off there was the not inconsiderable problem that I couldn't get it going again.

Now, I use the mobile phone in fits and starts but I need one active at all times in case my Mum's nursing home needs to contact me in an emergency. So there was no option but for me to seek a replacement first thing on Friday morning.

My service provider is Telstra. I can sense Australian readers gnashing their teeth immediately at the mention of that organisation. As I had to be in the city for lunch on Friday I thought I would go to Telstra's King Street store. On arrival there I found there was a plentiful number of service attendants or whatever they call themselves. None was actually attending to any customers. They were too busy at their computer screens or on the phone, to attend to the four or five customers standing around in expectation of receiving attention. They also all looked about 13 years of age. Has Telstra usurped McDonalds in the child recruitment stakes?

Eventually 'Mark' noticed that I was decomposing in the store and evidently thought he better do something about it by asking if he could assist me. Whilst decomposing there I had taken the opportunity to look around the store and found there were numerous Nokia phones (my preference) on display so I was confident that I could select one from that range as a replacement handset.

I explained my situation to Mark and once he had checked my details and plan and customer history on his computer he informed me there was one model I could obtain.

One! Just one! Out of all those dozens of models on display, my (apparently) cheapskate plan entitled me only to one model out of them all.

And here it is.


Forty-five minutes after agreeing to select the one model I was offered, 'Mark' had completed the paperwork and transferred my contact list onto the new phone. For better or worse this is the new handset I will live with for the next two years or until, of course, it decides to die.

Lunch @ The Malaya

Immediately following the two coldest October days in Sydney for 35 years, the weather today was delightfully mild and sunny for lunch at The Malaya with TyP, TyM and Ry. Jm couldn't make it as he is still recovering from a double hernia operation. It's a sign of our age group that initial greetings included updates on Jm's condition, TyP's recovery from prostate surgery, TyM's dalliance with cancer and my significantly less serious recent sinus infection and bronchitis. Only Ry was symptomless on this occasion although even he, the evergreen slimline man, was complaining that he had gained several kilos since our previous lunch.

The Malaya is in a good location at King Street Wharf with views of the ferry wharves and the the tempting seacraft toing and froing from them. But the best view of all are the waiters who all seem to have been recruited from central casting as actors in between jobs.

Oh, and the food was fine too.

The Women

The Women is the latest adaptation of the play by Clare Boothe Luce that was first filmed in 1939.

Meg Ryan learns that her financier husband is having an affair with a perfume saleswoman. Her friends rally around in support. The contrivance of this work all along has been that it is performed by an all female cast. All the non-speaking extras filling the background, whether indoors or outdoors, are female too.

This adaptation attempts the witty style of dialogue that used to be delivered so successfully in the 1940s by actresses such as Rosalind Russell who was in the 1939 film or an Eve Arden. But none of the women in this update matches those luminaries.

Nevertheless, Annette Bening does quite a good job of her role as do Meg Ryan, Candice Bergen, Debra Messing and Bette Midler in theirs, the last named effectively playing herself as ever.

I had a few quiet giggles but the film somehow never quite hits it's mark.

I wish I'd said that....

Meg Ryan speaking in The Women to Candice Bergen about what her estranged husband is missing out on;

"I could suck the nails out of a board"

Now, there's a gay come-on line.

Rod Stewart pokes my arse?

Do you take much notice of the toilet paper you purchase?

I have always purchased toilet paper on the basis of its texture and generally have preferred paper with some colour and patterns on it rather than the plain patternless style. In all my years of purchasing toilet paper I have never really looked properly at the patterns. That is, until today.

Today, as I was sitting doing my business, I inspected the pattern of the toilet paper closely for the first time. And this is what I saw;



The paper didn't photograph too well but the pattern on it is sails and it also contains the words Sail Away. I had never noticed words on the paper previously.

Why would the designers choose this pattern and these words? Is this paper intended for sailors or yachting types? Am I supposed to feel that I am sailing as I wipe my arse?

I wonder what other sporting activities I have been wiping myself with all these years?

Brideshead Revisited

Just weeks after the English aristocratic period piece The Duchess comes another, albeit from a different period; Brideshead Revisited.

In Brideshead Revisited, Matthew Goode is the non aristocratic Oxford history student befriended by the Catholic Flyte family. The religion is important because it is crucial to plot developments.

Ben Whishaw and Hayley Atwell are the Flyte siblings who take a fancy to Goode whilst Emma Thompson is the family matriarch who casts a shadow over them all.

Regardless of your views of the subject matter of the film, based on Evelyn Waugh's famous novel, there would be few not impressed by the sumptuous surroundings in which this film was made. From Castle Howard in Yorkshire to Venice and Marrakesh the viewer is exposed to an extraordinary world of class, wealth and power.

Hayley Atwell, who played the mistress in The Duchess, creates a far different image in this film. Emma Thompson's first up interrogation of Goode over dinner, dressed up as polite conversation, is masterful.

As an aside, viewed through gay eyes, Goode and Whishaw in their scenes together both come across as 'bottoms' so no wonder their relationship was doomed. (That's not what the story is about anyway.)

I believe the film received lukewarm reviews overseas but I enjoyed it far more than the BBC television series of the early 1980s.

It might as well be spring

Shirley Jones, you might feel gay in a melancholy way but I've got news for you. It is spring. So why is it only 15c in Sydney today?

In search of a seat

Two years ago a dear friend of ours, Dh, died in her mid forties of cancer following a short illness. It was a quite a shock and in her memory her friends made donations to the Garvan Institute which performs marvellous medical research.

It was always the intention of another friend, Fs, to produce a photographic tribute to Dh and yesterday Fs emailed and asked if I would go to the Auditorium in the Institute, which is near the Hospital where I volunteer, and photograph the seat which has a plaque in Dh's memory.

I did that, this afternoon.



(The foyer of the Institute - pity about the cones!)

I explained to the receptionist what I wanted to do and she spoke to someone else on the phone who okayed my request. The receptionist gave me directions to the Auditorium and I had to pass through security doors to reach it. When I reached the Auditorium I found it in darkness and I felt around the walls but couldn't locate any switches. I wandered around the perimeter of the Auditorium and had a stroke of luck when I came across a sole worker at a computer on the otherwise unoccupied expansive floor. I don't know what he was doing there on his own but I was glad I found him as he was able to show me the light switch.

Then I had the task of locating the seat with Dh's plaque. I suppose the Auditorium contains a couple of hundred seats and working my way from the back row I half crawled my way around row by row. Early on, I unexpectedly found a plaque in honour of one of my fellow volunteers who died last year and then several rows further on I reached Dh's plaque.

The silver grey seats and plaques did not photograph easily in the available light but I got several shots that I hope will suit Fs' tribute album.

Sculpture by the Sea 2008 (3)

Some of the artwork I photographed on display at Sculpture by the Sea 2008.

(Click on photo to enlarge for better view.)


In the ocean - Spheres by Sophie Hoppe.

Price $12,000

Creator's statement: This work is a kinetic installation portraying an invisible constraint.


In left foreground - Sky Catcher 11 by Bob Emser (USA).

Price: $12,500

No statment provided.

In middle distance - imag_ne by Emma Anna.

Price: $5,000

Creator's Statement: The power of the imagination affords us poetic sanctuary in an often hostile world.


Left - Paper Moon (aka Bill's Boat) by Orest Keywan.

Price: $66,000

No statement provided.

Right - She thought by Mark McClelland.

Price: $77,000

Creator's Statement: She liked to look a long way out to sea sometimes, wondering at the place where it flew up into the sky.


Poroplastic 2 by Richard Goodwin.

Price: $90,000

Creator's Statement: 'Poroplastic' is the explosion of a new motorcycle held together with lines of force which become an elaborate stainless steel frame.

I'm not sure what Muzbot would make of the dismantled new motorcycle.


Ordinary Exraordinary by Ivan Lovatt.

Price $21,000

Creator's Statement: Andy Warhol's art made the ordinary extraordinary. This is the portrait of an extraordinary artist created in an ordinary medium.

Sculpture by the Sea 2008 (2)

Yesterday I took the coastal walk along from Bondi Beach to Tamarama Beach where Sculpture by the Sea 2008 was on display.

Although it was not yet 9am when I set out, thousands of people were taking the walk to view the display.

(Click to enlarge photos for better view.)


Sunbathers and surfers have made an early start and a surf carnival is underway at the Northern end of the beach - in the top distance of photo.


People at the northern end of the coastal walk adjacent to the Icebergs Club.


The trail of people continues along the walk around the point at Marks Park.


And then on the southern side of Marks Park onwards to Tamarama Beach in the distance.


Finally at Tamarama Beach with the Nippers (youngsters being taught surfing and life saving skills) dressed in blue at the water's edge.

It was not easy to take photos of the artworks with so many people around but I managed a few which I will post tomorrow.

By the way, this coastal walk used to be a busy gay beat at night which I frequented in my teens and twenties. However a number of gay bashings and murders have occurred there over the years since and I imagine the area no longer attracts gay men at night.

Sculpture by the Sea 2008 (1)

I had a wander along the Sculpture by the Sea 2008 this morning and will post some photos over the next few days.

Burn After Reading

OK where to start?

John Malkovich is an intelligence analyst who has been demoted for his drinking and Tilda Swinton is his tough talking wife. George Clooney is a Treasury officer who is a former Marshall. His wife writes stories for children. Frances McDormand is a fitness centre worker who wants a host of cosmetic procedures and Brad Pitt is her simple thinking co-worker.

How and why they and a host of others cross paths is the story and humour in this Coen Brothers film.

A film reviewer on Radio National yesterday morning recommended this as a film to see and she described it as hilarious. To me, hilarious is a film where you laugh out loud a lot and often throughout the course of the film. As, for example, in Some Like It Hot.

I always see a Coen Brothers film full of expectation and mostly find them less than hilarious; although often ironic, wry and mildly humorous. I wouldn't describe Burn After Reading as hilarious but I did find it interesting and humorous.