Take a position

I'm a very placid person. Friends have complained about it. 'For heavens sake, express an opinion', Cs has railed at me several times when he has foamed at the mouth at some imagined outrage which has left me quite unmoved and disinterested.

Someone, one or both of my parents perhaps, has imbued me with a 'live and let live' attitude to life and events. Occasionally I get hot under the collar about some matter but it doesn't happen very often.

In a similar vein my mind is often a blank. Nada. Nothing happening. I'll be seated somewhere, silent and not contributing to the conversation and someone will make that cliched observation, 'a penny for your thoughts', when in reality I am thinking nothing at all.

Laboratory tests 'prove'!!

Bridge

Tonight, 42.10%, 12/13

Holiday harbour activity

As best I can recall it has been a long time since it rained in Sydney on Australia Day. This year it did rain, virtually all day. The usual activities continued in the rain including annual events on Sydney Harbour.

The latest Navy vessel, HMAS Canberra, amongst pleasure craft and masted sailing vessels.

One of three P&O cruise ships which anchored in the harbour for the day.

After Dinner

Sydney Theatre Company

(Sydney Theatre Company at Wharf 1)

Five people are out for Friday night dinner at a club. At one table three women, one uptight and unmarried, one fun loving and unmarried, the third tentatively stepping out for the first time since being widowed. At another table two men, one recently separated and the other unmarried and looking to pick up a woman for the evening.

This is the set up for 'After Dinner', written thirty years ago by Andrew Bovell when he was just 21 years old.

A very funny and at times poignant examination of human behaviour and relationships.
★★★★

Arise Sir Philip

I awoke this morning to the news that Prince Philip - that Greek Englishman who is married to a Queen and who lives mainly in London - has been made a Knight in the Order of Australia. No doubt Sir Philip as he may now prefer to be known is chuffed at the news.

Like many Australians I have no idea why our Prime Minister thought last year, without any public discussion of which I am aware, that it was a good idea to reinstate Knighthoods into Australia's honours system let alone distribute such trinkets to people who not only aren't Australian but do not even live here.

The supplementary news that the Knighthood is for 'his contribution to Australia' leaves me rather bewildered. I suspect Sir Philip is more bewildered than I.

At least Sir Philip won't have to travel far for his investiture. He might just tumble out of bed one morning and into something a little formal, perhaps a little number like this;

As for Prime Minister Abbott....have we ever had a PM more out of touch? Not in my lifetime.

Australia Day 2015

Unbroken

Unbroken is about an American Olympian and wartime Bombardier, Louis Zamperini, who was captured by the Japanese after being adrift on the ocean on a rubber dinghy for more than seven weeks following the shooting down of his plane and who was detained as a Prisoner of War.

The film focuses relentlessly on the brutal treatment Zamperini was subjected to as a POW and as a consequence is heavy going for much of its length. The final moments which show photos of the real life Zamperini  and details about his post war life and attitudes indicate a remarkable man and give some credence to the events portrayed earlier.

Doubtless cinematic and dramatic license has been taken in the portrayal and it does seem unlikely that all of the men with whom Zamperini served prior to his capture could have been as flawlessly photogenic as they appear in the film.

Strong stuff and better than average.
★★★1/2

Horses for courses

Horses for courses...or something like that. I really should learn a lesson but sometimes I forget.

Tonight I purchased a takeaway meal from a neighbourhood eatery which specialises in chicken dishes. I had the intention to purchase a chicken dish without deciding what type to select until I got there. However once at the eatery I noticed a beef curry on offer, something the eatery doesn't often have on its menu so despite the heat of the day - or maybe because of it - I made the last moment decision to select the beef dish instead.

That was a mistake.

The beef was very dark - darker than in the stock image below - and not very tender and the curry flavour, if that's what it really was, did not appeal to me.

What is further annoying was that only when eating the meal back home did I remember selecting a beef curry from that eatery about a year ago and not enjoying that meal either.

When will I learn the lesson. Horses for courses. Stick to an eatery's speciality.

American Sniper

Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) is a 'legend' and a 'hero' to his mates for his unerring skill as an American Sniper in the war in Iraq. His task, along with his fellow snipers, is to protect the ground troupes engaged in house to house searches by picking off enemy snipers and combatants. His superior 'kill' record is behind his fame.

I'm quite conflicted by this film. It opens with scenes of the childhood Kyle receiving lessons from his father on his responsibilities as a family defender, scenes which are every bit as unpleasant as the war scenes to follow. The film then quickly jumps to the attack on the World Trade Centre in New York which inspires and leads to Kyle's enlistment as a Navy SEAL. He marries and starts a family and serves four tours of duty to Iraq. All the while he grows more distant from his family and increasingly disturbed by his war experiences.

From Twitter I see there are people who having seen this film are enthused to join in the killing spree. I find this response to the film disturbing. Whilst I feared in its early scenes that the film was into glorifying the war the fact is that pretty well all the combatants are shown to eventually be severely damaged mentally and/or physically by their experiences. Yet despite severe damage those who might be said to be survivors remain drawn to involvement in weapons.

The futility of the war is obvious with nothing achieved apart from injury, death and mayhem but the film seems uninterested to underline this fact.

Cooper's performance is quite brave as he departs far from the handsome charmer of his early movies  and it looks like he will be well rewarded financially. Cooper is one of the film's producers and the movie is a box office hit having taken nearly $100 million dollars on its first weekend in the USA.

This is very firmly an American view of the conflict. Technically I suppose the film is well made but I had difficulty following the dialogue, large amounts of which were unintelligible to me. I simply couldn't make out what the actors were saying.

Whilst I'm concerned the film sparks an healthy reaction from some, assessing it rationally I rate it
★★★

Radiance

Belvoir St Theatre

Three half sisters assemble at the family home for the funeral of their mother. One of the sisters, an internationally renowned opera singer, has returned from London. As the sisters remember the highs and lows of their past, family secrets are unravelled.

Radiance is a revival. It is directed by Leah Purcell who also plays the part of the oldest of the sisters, the opera singer. I like Ms Purcell and have enjoyed her acting in the past but she is not convincing in this role. There is none of the diva bravado in her body language or behaviour. The other two performers are quite capable in their roles.

Unfortunately I easily guessed early on the big twist that provides the ultimate dramatic climax.

Some strong aspects but overall, disappointing.
★★

Bridge

Tonight, 46.30%, 14/17

I want to fly with whom they're flying......

Radio times

I was seven when television started in Australia but we didn't get one in our home until I was about ten. In my formative years home entertainment was sitting around a radio receiver every evening listening to serials and musical programs. Our imagination was a powerful tool with mental pictures of what was being portrayed in the serials forming in our minds.

I remember how my illusions of these seemingly life like serials evaporated when we went to a radio studio one day to see a serial being broadcast. I saw the reality of actors standing over a microphone with some bald headed man on the side creating the sound effects for doors closing, rain falling and the like. It was like learning the truth about Santa Claus.

Radio plays a different role in our lives nowadays and it is more difficult to win over listener imagination. Modern television and film and astonishing developments in computerised effects mean we are much more cynical and less easily deceived.

There is an advertisement currently broadcast on morning radio for a health service in Sydney specialising in depression. It is a serious matter. The advertisement depicts an apparently young groom tearfully talking about his young bride's depression. Even allowing for the obvious, the knowledge that this is an advertisement, the groom's tearful disclosure just doesn't ring true to me.

I suppose its all in the ear of the beholder but this is one message my imagination hasn't bought.

Bridge

Tonight, 46.10%, 7/9

Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

There is a lot of publicity surrounding Birdman which concerns a former epic film actor who disappeared from prominence and who now is making a comeback via the Broadway stage. Michael Keaton, himself having disappeared from view after starring as Batman, plays the actor.

Birdman is nominated for a swag of awards and there is plenty of comment about its style in that it appears to have been filmed largely in one 'take'; that is, a continuous sweep of the camera apparently without any breaks in filming. This technical feature is both impressive and distracting. I spent far too long at the outset focusing on the camerawork rather than getting into the plot and dialogue. I also felt some motion sickness early on.

The film is set entirely within and around a New York theatre as a play is rehearsed and previewed in the lead up to its official opening night. Birdman has some wonderful individual moments but at the same time is occasionally confusing and obscure.
★★★1/2

Impulse buying

My good friend Mt is a very careful shopper. She cannot purchase a pair of shoes for walking the dog without first researching the internet, visiting shoe shops in three cities and trying shoes on for fit and comfort for hours on end. I admire her thoroughness but am also bemused that despite all this effort she sometimes is dissatisfied by her eventual purchase. Mt put just that sort of effort into buying her first car for 17 years - a demonstration car - and then traded it in for another a few months later.

I, on the other hand, am different. Very different actually. Yesterday was an example.

I went into town to have a $10 super zero buzzcut and (figuratively) came home with a $4,750 lounge suite. It will be delivered on 6 March. I saw a sofa and two armchairs in a furniture store. I handed over a plastic card and said 'send me one set please' and that was that. No research. Very few thought processes.

The sofa looks like this;

and the two armchairs are similar.

I think that's called impulse buying.

St Vincent

When we queued to see The Water Diviner a few weeks back an elderly man with walking stick approached us as he was leaving the cinema and he told us he had just seen a charming and funny film. When I asked him the name of that film he couldn't remember and he shuffled away only to return a moment later to say he now remembered the name. It was 'St Vincent'.

And now I've seen it too.

A newly separated mother and her young son move into a house next door to an incorrigible, irasicble gambler, drinker and general layabout. Against all expectations the neighbour assumes the role of minder and mentor of the young boy.

This is a delightful film which had me chuckling throughout and then teary eyed at the end with its admittedly calculated conclusion. From birth to death everything gets a run in this excellent little film.
★★★★

By the sea...

...for lunch today...

Bondi Beach

North Bondi RSL Club

Taken 3

Who would be married to Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson)? In Taken and Taken 2 members of his family were kidnapped and he had to perform super human feats to return them to the safety of his protection. So it is no surprise that in 'Taken 3' he has do it all over again only this time it has to be better, messier and more spectacular than previously. This even though no one in his family has been 'taken' as such. One has been murdered and the other has become a bargaining chip but what the heck.

The old adage applies. You'll like this if this is the sort of film that you like. Duh!

Hopelessly implausible nonsense.
★★