Shame

Michael Fassbender works in a high power New York office and lives in a modern downtown apartment. On the surface he is a success, admired by his colleagues. In reality Fassbender is a restless and relentless sex addict. He pursues sex whenever and wherever he can. In the office, at home, on the train and through the internet, nowhere and no one is off limits.

In the early scenes Fassbender provides exemplary proof of the stereotype about lean men and their large appendages. Once proved his appendage is tucked away from sight for the remainder of the film, at least from sight of the audience but he gives it a major workout in sexual activity that is lustful and loveless. All this is played out in long, unblinking closeups that test the audience to the core.

'Shame' does not spell out how or why Fassbender has got to this point but the presence of his sister gives clues to a turbulent and destructive past between them.

Fassbender is a fine actor and this would not have been an easy role to play. The film is not an easy one to watch.

I must say despite Fassbender's much discussed and impressive appendage his is a body type that looks better clothed than naked.

(Warning: Full frontal male and female nudity, strong sex scenes)

The Artist

A modern day silent movie about the transition from the silent movie era to the introduction of 'talkies' in the late 1920s.

About five minutes into 'The Artist' I wondered whether I could sit through two hours of silent pictures but my fears were unfounded. This is a charming easy to follow movie. It is packed with cliches from earlier days of the movies. These don't detract from the film, rather they pay tribute to the industry.

Jean Dujardin is a charismatic leading man as befits his screen character and his leading lady Berenice Bejo is startlingly impressive in her first ever acting role.

It was a bit weird sitting in a cinema with no sound other than music in the auditorium. It certainly demonstrated for me how much noise, sound effects etc we have become accustomed to and which aside from the dialogue and music we scarcely notice in modern movies.

Help!

How do I change my Admin address on Blogger?


I've tried to find a method through Blogger settings, Blogger Help and my Google account and have just gone round and round in circles.

A good day for the movies?

It's been so grey and wet this summer in Sydney it was scarcely surprising that the crowds were lined up for the movies at my nearby art house complex last Saturday. The only thing is that the weather had cleared into the first sunny period we had seen for weeks, yet there still we were in great numbers.

Whilst Cs and I were queued for our movie ('The Artist') we saw friends queued for other movies. Be was there with his boyfriend Wm who glared at me as though I was stalking them. I wasn't. They were queued for 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' which we had already seen.

Then Cs noticed a couple who are members of his scrabble group. They were queued for 'The Descendants' We had seen that too.

Then Jn, a fellow volunteer from the hospital rushed in to get tickets for 'The Descendants'. I was somewhat taken aback when she said she had just come from seeing 'The Women on the Sixth Floor' and was now going to see the other film back to back and that one for the second time! Two films back to back on the first sunny day for a month?

I didn't feel so bad then that we were wasting the sun to see just the one film.

Friendship

Friendship is a two way street. You appreciate the help, support and companionship offered by your friends and you reciprocate for your friends.

I have many acquaintances but only a few close friends. Some of the latter have been friends since our teenage years; that is for more than forty years. Four decades is a long time and you think that you know each other very well after that period.

Still, friends can surprise. Do you really ever know the other person? Friends change too. Why wouldn't they? After all I have changed as I grow older, sometimes wiser, always more experienced.

There are three friends, with whom I form a quartet, who worked together, played sport together and have continued to socialise for more than forty years. A few years back I was surprised to be told that one, Ty, had been hospitalised for depression. Apparently Ty had suffered some serious episode. The surprise was twofold. First, Ty always had seemed such an outgoing, spirited man it had never occurred to me he might be battling demons. Second, and what really stunned us, was that Ty had been hospitalised for depression on a number of occasions over the years and not one of us in the foursome had the slightest inkling that this had happened.

How could this be? How could we not have noticed when Ty was going through difficulties. The sense that we had failed Ty was strong. Thankfully Ty's treatment was successful and his condition is under control. Or is it? Do we really know?

Now, Ae, another friend of over forty years seems to be suffering self esteem problems and unprecedented failures of confidence when for all the previous years of our friendship she was the most confident and outgoing of women. I have some theories as to why this has happened but I am no expert. What to do? I'm not sure.

I may blog further about this.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Gary Oldman is brought back into Britain's intelligence service to establish the identity of a mole believed to be imbedded in the organisation. The delicate task is complicated by the likelihood that potential suspects are probably amongst the team of which he had previously been a member.

Slow to start, this film develops into a terrific drama the deeper Oldman delves into the matter. His is a grand performance, a standout in an ensemble of superb British actors.

You have to pay attention but your reward is a cracking 'cold war' yarn.

I'm back

A combination of new MacBook purchase, an introductory lesson, transfer of documents from my previous laptop and then my wireless modem deciding to take an uninvited rest kept me away from my blog but now I'm back.

It may take me a while to return to daily posts as I get used to the new set up but I'm working on it.

First off, how the hell do I retrieve my photos?

Mmmm, my problem, not yours.

Out of office

I'm off the air for a few days whilst my laptop and I are being 'Appled'

Ordinary Days

(Darlinghurst Theatre Company)

The tiny performance space of the DTC is ideal for 'Ordinary Days', a ninety minutes long musical about four New Yorkers and their relationships. The musical has been created by Adam Gwon and is in the style of Stephen Sondheim. A pianist placed at the edge of the space provides the music and signals scene changes by placing simple objects on his piano, such as a mini Statue of Liberty and a Metropolitan Museum of the Arts shopping bag.

It is an entertaining production. The lyrics are witty and the music has that certain type of sound associated with Broadway musicals. If there is a negative I think it is that the four voices in this production are too similar. The musical sound becomes a bit repetitive after a while.

A Few Best Men

Australia Day seemed like a good day to see the latest Australian comedy - also released on that day - 'A Few Best Men'.

This is the latest in the crass style of comedy that seems to be popular nowadays or at least I assume they are popular otherwise I can't account for so many of them being made.

After a whirlwind Pacific Island romance a young Englishman, accompanied by his three best friends, travel to Australia for his wedding to an Australian bride. So little do they know of each other that he isn't aware until his arrival that his bride's family is wealthy with her father a prominent parliamentarian.

The wedding, which seems to be organised with almost unseemly haste, turns into a fiasco of drugs, sheep and general misadventure. It is a load of nonsense and not very witty nonsense at that but others in the audience enjoyed what was on offer and I have to admit that I had the occasional chuckle too.

Never Did Me Any Harm

(Sydney Theatre Company, Force Majeure and Sydney Festival)

This short production of only 65 minutes is an interesting affair. Seven performers act and engage in movement, a cross between mime and dance) to illustrate 'vox pops' of people discussing childhood. The theme is how 'we' were raised or how 'we' raised our children did us/them no harm. The inference is that child raising nowadays is off the tracks.

The setting is a stereotypical 1960s Australian backyard with a shed and a loose wood paling fence. Much of the dialogue is pre-recorded snippets of personal recollections with live dialogue at a minimum initially. Lengthier monologues delivered directly to the audience emerge later.

The entire piece is a collection of thoughts rather than a straight narrative.

The production has a fascinating lighting design. The program names Geoff Cobham and Chris Petridis as the Lighting and Assistant Lighting Designers respectively.

Body of work.....

Maybe I should spend less time working and more time at home watching morning television....

Baby is growing up

My new little bundle of joy is settling in nicely. She spent her first night out yesterday and frolicked in the rain for the first time and nearly was breath tested for the first time too as she tip-toed home at 11pm.

They grow up so quickly.

Swipe my pad

In an ironic piece of timing Andrew yesterday posted a piece about laptops in which he concluded that 'older people like to have a mouse'. Well, I would certainly qualify as an older person and it is true that for a long time now I have preferred using a mouse. About six years ago I trialled a Mac Book but quickly returned to a personal computer with mouse when I found the Mac Book's swipe pad uncomfortable to use and not to my liking.

In the years since I slowly found myself drawn into the 'religion' known as Apple. First it was an iPod, then an iPhone leading last Christmas to the purchase of an iPad. None of them was an essential purchase but each seduced me in turn thus enboldening me to the subsequent purchase. Given that I seem to be in a state of heat for impulse purchases at the moment I suppose it was inevitable that I would add this to the list...

Mac Book Pro

a Mac Book Pro which I purchased yesterday morning. Consistent with my long held preference for mouse controls I also purchased a wireless mouse. The religious theme came to the fore again as the enthusiastic young man with the North American twang who attended to my purchase waxed lyrical about drawing me into the 'family' with all manner of workshop opportunities.

Those who have purchased products from the Apple store know that you are passed on to another enthusiast who helps you set up your purchase ready for initial use. My wireless mouse was one of the first items set up but as I was led through other actions it dawned on me after a while that I was mostly swiping the pad rather than clicking the mouse. My conversion, subtle and subconscious, is almost complete.

That's why it's ironic that when I returned home with my purchase and as my first act looked up Andrew's blog I found his latest post to be about laptops and the swipe pad.

Thyestes

As a child I often attended Saturday afternoon matinees at the cinema featuring thrilling adventures with cliff hanger moments but never could I have imagined a tale of fratricide, incestuous rape and a father unwittingly eating the the remains of his own children which was what confronted us yesterday afternoon at the theatre. 'Thyestes' is Greek mythology and this production presented by Belvoir Street is advertised as being 'after Seneca'. It was nothing like what I imagined beforehand.

Whilst each scene is prefaced by brief surtitles explaining the mythological 1st Century BC action to follow what is then presented is a 21st Century rendition of activity that illustrates the mythology without directly recreating it.

What I've just written sounds a bit pompous but the fact is that the play staged is a very modern, at times very funny, at times highly sexualised, at times scandalous and at times shocking story which could simply be viewed as a modern shocker but is so clever as a vehicle for illustrating the mythology from twenty-two centuries earlier.

Not everyone's cup of afternoon tea but it is very well done with fine performances from its cast of three males, especially Mark Winter (above).

Warning: Nudity.

Tuscan dreams

A sense of Tuscany in inner suburban Darlington

'I'm just going out for some milk'

'Just browsing....'

You know how sometimes you go down to the shops for something simple, like one bottle of milk, and somehow return a while later with all manner of unintended purchases like six family size blocks of chocolate and a lifetime's quantity of Double A batteries that won't last beyond the weekend? Oh, and no bottle of milk.

Well, I had one of those expeditions last Friday. Sort of.

Having done my good deed for the week setting up Ae's new laptop and internet connection for her in the morning, I thought I would check out shredders. I need to clear up decades worth of documents, many of which should be shredded to protect my privacy, so this was to be by way of an exploratory shopping trip.

Well there was a car dealership nearby and somehow seemingly directed by an unseen hand I emerged not from the office works store but the dealership less than an hour later with a brand new car. Well, I didn't actually have the car with me, but I had signed the purchase papers and given a deposit. And I collect the new car tomorrow.

I suppose it will come in handy when eventually I do purchase a shredder and have to bring it home.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Having read Stieg Larsson's trilogy and seen all three television cum cinema screen adaptions in only the last eighteen months I had last moment doubts about seeing the US cinema interpretation of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo'. Surely I would be bored by the repetition? As it turns out I wasn't.

Even with its two and a half hours length there is no way that the film can incorporate the dense sub plots of the equivalent book. The Swedish television/cinema version similarly skirted over the detail. As a consequence a lot of the texture to the story is missing.

As is to be expected the US cinema version is slicker looking than the Swedish made for television counterpart. The US film has mostly non-Swedes in the cast all speaking in English language with vague Scandinavian accents although written material that appears on screen (signage, letters, etc but curiously not television screens) are in Swedish. This is an odd arrangement that is also practised by Kenneth Branagh's British television version of the the Swedish crime series 'Wallander'.

Rooney Mara does a terrific job as Lisbeth Salander and Daniel Craig is workmanlike as the journalist Mikale Blomkvist as are the support cast. I loved the soundtrack; a mix of hi-tech and classical music.

SPOILER ALERT: Some Australian readers may be disappointed that an Australian connection in the book (and the Swedish television version) has been changed completely in this US adaptation.

The film is not quite as confronting as I was expecting from the advance publicity. A competent crime film but, like its Swedish counterpart, not a match for the book.

Hugo (3D)

On one level Martin Scorsese's 'Hugo' is a children's film set in the 1930s about an orphan who lives in the clock tower of a Paris railway station in constant fear of discovery in case he be sent off to an orphanage. He becomes drawn to a toy shop on the concourse of the station which then leads to his discovery of a wondrous new world.

On another level altogether the film is a loving tribute to the moving picture, its creators and the world of cinema. This is a marvelous film visually, a sort of cinematic pop up story book. It looks splendid in 3D.

I wondered if 'Hugo' was a little long and lacking in action for children but there were many present at my session and they sat through it all without any visible or audible indications of restlessness.

Something special.

The Descendants

George Clooney is a lawyer in Hawaii. When his wife is seriously injured in a sports accident he finds himself effectively a single parent without a clue as to how to deal with his two wilful young daughters. He is on a crash course to learn more about his family, and himself, than he would have imagined.

'The Descendants' is a low key drama with flashes of humour. Set in a Hawaii that is not entirely the paradise of travel brochures the film presents a family journey that probably will be familiar to many.

I enjoyed the trip.