Episode four of Lost, Eggtown

We watched the latest episode of Lost as we usually do. And as usual it left is with a lot of questions. Here are some...

Brett: OK we're Lost again.
Babsi: Yeah, what did you think?
Brett: I enjoyed the episode hugely, as usual. I really really enjoyed it.
Babsi: But more than the last one right?
Brett: Yeah, probably more than the last one. Although with the last one they did fire some rocket, to check some times, and I do like that nerdy scientific stuff. There was none of that in this episode.
Babsi: That was rubbish though. I really didn't like last week, I liked this week. Because the acting was very good, Evangeline Lily, Josh Holloway and Mathew Fox are really good actors and they hold it together. I think Lost would lose credibility without them.
Brett: It's a very complicated story to tell. The scene between Sawyer and Kate in the bedroom, where she slapped him. Where one moment she's with him and one moment she's gone, I found that very confusing. It must have been very hard to play, I think.
Babsi: Well no, he's just being mean and provocative really.


Brett: Was he? I thought he just wanted to be with her and he thought she was pregnant. He reacted like a ...
Babsi: Too relieved, I guess, when he found out that she wasn't.
Brett: Do you think he acted too relieved?
Babsi: Erm, no I thought his reaction was pretty normal. Was it more about her thinking the whole time she's pregnant. I got a bit confused by the whole pregnant thing.
Brett: Yeah, where did the pregnancy come from?
Babsi: I think from a few episodes before, because Julia kept talking about Austin's sample.
Brett: Oh yeah, that's right.
Babsi: I thought the fashion was interesting this time. All the people who escaped the island, because they got a huge pay-off from Oceanic, who are probably bankrupt after this whole thing, their fashion changes. So somebody must have sat down and said, “Ok we need a costume change, big time!” And it's noticeable. Last episode it was noticeable with Saeid, and with Kate this time, it is really noticeable. And Jack, they both look completely different, she looks older, obviously because it is a flash forward. The flash forwards are...
Brett: I don't know if she was supposed to look older.
Babsi: Yes because it is a few years afterwards.
Brett: The series has been going for two or three years now.
Babsi: The flash forward is a few years afterwards.
Brett: But did she really look older.
Babsi: In the trial bit? I thought so.
Brett: Maybe she just looks older because she's dressed conservatively.
Babsi: Possibly, yeah sure. I just thought it was an interesting thing because on the island they are always wearing the same stuff and it's always a bit ripped. It's just a different look. It's funny because you always see Kate in kind of tom-boyish clothes, practical clothes and in the flash forward it's all purpley velvet sort of stuff. It's sort of semi-styled and I did really notice it this time. Maybe because we just went shopping, I don't know why, but I really noticed it this time, and it's interesting. And the twist at the end is very interesting.
Brett: Yeah, but why would Jack be upset about the baby, it's called Aaron isn't it.
Babsi: I think he assumes the baby is Sawyer's.
Brett: But how would that mix-up happen? I mean he sees Aaron all the time.
Babsi: Well, you don't know. You don't know whether Claire died and Kate took the baby...
Brett: But we're supposed to assume.
Babsi: Yeah maybe, but she could just explain it to people. OK, look she's very cautious about that. She doesn't want her mum to see the baby, or anyone, but she wants Jack to see the baby, so it's a bit confusing.
Brett: But why would Jack care if Kate has this friends baby, because perhaps something happened to the friend?
Babsi: Perhaps she even murdered her, I don't know, everything's crazy.
Brett: There are always bits that are a little bit mad. Like Kate's conversation with the scientist in the boathouse, where she says, “Tell me what you know about me.” And he says, “I'll tell you what I know about you, if you bring me someone I want to speak to.” And she says, “Who?”, and he says, “You know who.” And there are always bits of dialogue in this show where nobody is actually saying anything, for line after line.
Babsi: I know what you mean but this episode was a lot better episode.
Brett: It was a better episode, because you did seem to find stuff out.
Babsi: At least it didn't trail off leaving you feeling it's so dull you can't take it anymore. And again that was down to the acting. This time the interesting actors dominated the scene. Not that Navine Andrews isn't bad or anything. It was just a weirder story.
Brett: I suppose we're really talking about this Ben character and who he turns out to be. Apparently the people on the boat know who he is or what he is.
Babsi: Well apparently everybody knows, and sort of assumes he is rich.
Brett: Apparently he's some sort of rich, powerful player.
Babsi: Seems to be. I can't see that he's rich somehow because, how would that even be possible?
Brett: I don't know, maybe he's the head of one of the companies or something.
Babsi: But that doesn't make any sense because we know his back-story and he was on the island. Why would he be rich? Does he have a Swiss bank account somewhere, what's the story?
Brett: We didn't really learn...did we learn anything new?
Babsi: We learned that eight people survived, that's not very many. And somehow we've learned that Claire probably hasn't survived, which is weird.
Brett: Or didn't make it to the outside, because apparently there are some on the island that they might need to go back for. But what I was thinking of is, wasn't everybody supposed to be interested in what the island is and what it all means? Isn't that we were all supposed to be interested in at the beginning?
Babsi: JJ seems to twist what we're interested in.
Brett: So not if one person happens to be in America and another happens to be on an island. I thought the point was, you know, what is the island?
Babsi: Well we sort of found out that the island is kind of like magnetic.
Brett: Yeah, there's some magnetic thing going on, and time is a little bit different on the island, we've learned. But her mum wasn't dead for a thousand years, so time isn't hugely different.
Babsi: Not hugely different no, just a bit.
Brett: I think we've found out as much as we ever will about the island. There are some big companies who are interested in it and it's a bit peculiar, and some hippies did some experiments. And that's all there is to it I reckon.
Babsi: What did you expect though? Did you expect something really different, spectacular and mind-bogglingly life changing.
Brett: Yeah, at one point there was a monster that made clicking noises.
Babsi: Yeah, but that was explained, it was part of the Others spy games.
Brett: The others live in wooden houses. They have book clubs. They don't have monsters.
Babsi: Well there was this weird ...
Brett: And the Hostiles lived in the woods in rags. They don't have monsters. So what was the island supposed to be. Because that's some sort of real high tech. Some cloud of nanotechnology or something, what else, could it be?
Babsi: I think JJ just got bored with it.
Brett: I think you're right. He must have thought, “I'm never going to be able to explain this monster. I'd better just leave it out. I've got three series left for them to forget about it.”
Babsi: No, no, you know what? Jacob can change shape, he's a sort of shape-shifting creature, apparently.
Brett: Uh huh, according to that spoiler we read on the internet.
Babsi: He comes back, I think he was in the second episode, or something, where Hurley takes them to the Jacob's house, and he wasn't there, or the house wasn't there or something.
Brett: Yeah, the house was gone. So the house is the black, clicking-noise monster?
Babsi: No, no no no. You know the Jacob person from series three. He was ...
Brett: (Whispers), “Help me.”
Babsi: ... yeah that's right, well done. He can change shape apparently, so maybe he turned into the monster. I'm starting to think that's possible.
Brett: But that's just nuts.
Babsi: Well yes, but the whole series is nuts.
Brett: The monster started out being really angry, chewing up trees and eating pilots. And then all of a sudden it just disappears, “I'm just going to sleep curled up under a tree, nobody's going to hear from me again.” I think we've found out as much as we are ever going to. I think it'll just keep on tying itself in knots with human interest stories now. I don't think we'll get anymore information. Like I used to love it when they would find a different hatch...
Babsi: But they've run out of hatches.
Brett: Yeah, but I loved that stuff, where there was always something new. Now a ship sails up and it's got some bonkers scientists on board who don't say much. That's not the same as a hatch full of magnetic walls that go “vreep” and maps, all that stuff. And all that came to nothing. You think, “Wow, when they put all that together, they're really going to discover something.” But they put it together and all they find is some wooden houses, and now they live there.
Babsi: It all collapsed like a flan.
Brett: It did, it collapsed like a flan. What ever happened to that Russian guy? He just swam off, or was he killed by his own grenade?
Babsi: He killed Charlie.
Brett: I think he'll be back. He'll be the captain of the ship.
Babsi: I think they even mentioned his name, they said Mikhail.
Brett: Did they?
Babsi: I think so. Maybe not, I can't remember.
Brett: Was the book important, because I missed the title.
Babsi: Which book?
Brett: At the very beginning Lock gives Ben his breakfast, and he gives him a book to read.
Babsi: Oh dear, this book thing. They are like, “We are so clever and we are so educated, we are just going to put lots of books in the show all the time.” Even Sawyer, who is hot, is also a bit of a nerd.
Brett: Yeah, what was he reading? I'll have to look all this up on the internet. It might all be full of clues.
Babsi: Erm, nope it won't be.
Brett: It looked like one of the classics. Poor guy, they've got him reading the classics.
Babsi: He wears those nerdy glasses when he reads. How many spirals did we give it last week. I think two or something. This one should get three.
Brett: Yeah, I'll go along with three, because it's still interesting, it still grips you and you enjoy the episode. You get carried along by it because you've got to know the characters.
Babsi: Yeah, but the credit solely goes to Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lily and Josh Holloway.
Brett: And I think, that's a problem with a show. When it needs that.
Babsi: They're the best actors. They really are the best, they keep it going. Whenever they're around, they keep it enjoyable.
Brett: I like the characters that are a bit more weird in the story. I like the Scottish guy who goes, “Hello brother, I can see the future, and my clothes fall off.”
Babsi: Yeah, but he's in the helicopter, so we're going to find out about him next week.
Brett: I think next week's episode is going to be a lot better.
Babsi: Well the trailer seemed to have a lot of action.
Brett: But it might be disappointing. The helicopter might o a little way and have to turn round because it's stormy and land back on the island. “What happened to you guys on the helicopter?”, “Not very much. What have you discovered back on the island?”, “Nothing.”, “Didn't we think this was oing to be a super important episode?”, “Maybe but it's not now.”, “Didn't the new scientists tell you anything?”, “No, they've been playing cards on the beach.”
Babsi: how to write about nothing, I don't know. I think that's a bit cruel because I like Lost when it goes deeper into the peoples connections. I do like that.
Brett: Which is kind of a deep thing in a way.
Babsi: It's a very deep thing. Maybe JJ wanted to start it as a mad futuristic thing but he changed his mind.
Brett: maybe he lost his nerve.

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Why do we watch the Oscars every year?

Babsi: Why do we always watch the Oscars? It's a rather seedy annoying event actually, although it depends on the presenter. I was surprised to see John Stewart presenting it for a second time. He was just as rubbish as last time really, although he seems to be a friendly soul.
Brett: What makes you say he was a kind friendly soul?
Babsi: Well he was really sweet, for example when he made sure that Marketa Irglova got to make her acceptance speech. That was extremely sweet and I think he organised that. So why do we bother? That was the question.
Brett: Who knows? What does it even mean? A bunch of people in LA like There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. What's that got to do with me?
Babsi: Most of it is really, really cheesy but there are always touching moments. A touching moment was when Marion Cottilard won her Oscar, and she deserved it, well deserved it. It was a great film and a fantastic performance. And the second one was of course when the people from Once won. I was very, very happy for them. It is such a beautiful film. There's no violence in it, it doesn't need any action. They just do their thing and it's just beautiful. It really is cute.
Brett: The Oscar was for the song, and it really fits with the mood of the movie.

Babsi: Yeah, the song's genius actually. So there were these two really special moments, even though you think you're just going to see the same old cheesy rubbish and predictable stuff.
Brett: I liked Tilda Swinton as well, when she won. It obviously shocked her very much and she gave a great speech. It was cool.
Babsi: Yes she gave a great speech, it was funny.
Brett: It surprised me actually. She looks a little austere and librarian like but when she got up on stage she was like a mall rat.
Babsi: And then she was talking about the statuette's butt.
Brett: And George Clooney's rubber nipples on his Bat Man outfit.
Babsi: And you know I haven't seen Daniel Day Lewis's performance but I'm sort of pleased for him because I just like him.
Brett: I thought he was weird. Like a peculiar uncle with his long preying mantis arms and legs flailing about.
Babsi: He is a bit weird, but he's interesting. He was really, really good in In The Name of the Father. Awesome, an ancient movie but we know it because we're kind of ancient. So there always some little surprises. It's the same as Lost, just as you've given up there is a little surprise to keep your interest. I would say that Marion Cottilard's performance was great and the film was excellent. It was really sad. A bad performance could have made it a little pathetic or unbelievable, but she didn't. The way she played Edith Piaf when she was old.
Brett: That was very good, it was.
Babsi: For the same actress to play some one fairly young and quite old is amazing. It was the calibre of Bette Davis.
Brett: She looks a bit like Bette Davis to me.
Babsi: You mean in the film?
Brett: Yes, with the old-fashioned plucked eyebrows.
Babsi: How many times can a person be nominated. I mean Johnny Depp has been nominated how many times?
Brett: Well nobody expected him to win.
Babsi: He could have won for Pirates, but then pirates was categorised as a kids film.
Brett: He should have won for pirates, and they will give him an Oscar one day.
Babsi: Yeah, when he's ancient. When he's 80 or something and not hot anymore, for goodness sake.
Brett: He'll be given an Oscar for something quite reserved with a big scene where he cries, but it's really Pirates he'll be getting it for. I think they'll make him turn up five more times before they give it to him, maybe ten.
Babsi: He should have won for Ed Wood, that was a really good performance.
Brett: Films like La Vie En Rose win Oscars, having your lover die, going bonkers in a hotel room, fading and dying, that's what wins Oscars. Not being a slightly cheesy movie director with a permanent grin.
Babsi: (Laughs) You're so cruel.
Brett: That was the acting, it was a permanent grin.
Babsi: There was a lot more to the acting, I don't agree. He was very good.
Brett: I think he should have got it for Hunter S Thompson in...
Babsi: Fear and Loathing.
Brett: Now that was a really good performance.
Babsi: It was an awesome performance. But you know you can't reward somebody with an Oscar for doing lots of drugs and running around saying, “I'm seeing the bats.” You can't do that. The Documentary on the Iraq war winning was interesting. In the past they booed Michael Moor in his acceptance speech and his speech was awesome. I always wanted to write him an email saying, “Dude, respect.” I thought that was good and it takes guts. It's easier not to be confrontational when you accept something. This always reminds me of the funny acceptance speech in living in oblivion. When Steve Buschemi in his dreams gets what's supposed to be an Oscar and at the end he tells everyone to get lost, and then he wakes up. It's funny, really funny. He dreams he has the guts to tell all the people who have been mean to him where to go. But it's a good institution, because in a way it's a huge recognition for what you've done. Though it won't promise you any more parts. Lots of people have just sort of disappeared even though they won an Oscar.
Brett: I think it's just a brand.
Babsi: No there are good people being recognised for good work.
Brett: I'm always a little disappointed every year when I watch it.
Babsi: There was one year when it wasn't disappointing. When Julia Roberts won, and Denzel Washington won, and Halle Berry won.
Brett: I suppose the Oscars represent the power in Hollywood and when you see something like that happening...
Babsi: It seems that the power is still with white men. Directors are men and they're white, and that's a big thing. The director is a very, very important person.
Brett: When an Oscar is given to a black woman, it shows that something is changing.
Babsi: You see you're not even saying black man anymore, it's 2008.
Brett: Just because you said Halle Berry and it reminded me...
Babsi: Sure, her acceptance speech was pretty good, I liked it. There was a bit of crying but it was still...
Brett: It was real, it was a real emotion.
Babsi: And it's easy, by discrimination, to deny people a chance. Talent is a very tricky thing to define. Most of the musical performances nominated for an Oscar were shriekingly terrible. That woman singing the song from Enchanted was terrible, really awful. Mindbogglingly rubbish.
Brett: It was just dull I thought.
Babsi: Apart from Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard, that was great.
Brett: It was the only good song in the whole show.
Babsi: That's not really good enough is it.
Brett: I'll give it one spiral.
Babsi: That's cruel.
Brett: No. I mean it.
Babsi: I like the way Johnny Depp just sat in the audience and chewed gum. That was a way of saying, “I don't care about this whole thing.” I quite liked that, it was funny.
Brett: Why did he even go?
Babsi: If your nominated, you have to.
Brett: You can send someone to pick it up for you.
Babsi: You can do that at the Grammys or the BAFTAs whatever it's called, but you can't do it at the Oscars. Did John Stewart present it because of the writers strike, couldn't they get anyone else in such a short time.
Brett: Why did he do it again? He's good on his own show but this is a whole different kettle of fish.
Babsi: I enjoyed the hosting by Whoopi Goldberg, many, many gazillion years ago. And I liked Chris Rock because he was funny. Still one spiral is too harsh, I'm going to give it two and a half. There were three people who won that made me believe it wasn't just commercial rubbish.

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Review of "Definitely, Maybe"

Babsi: We saw Definitely, Maybe yesterday. I think it was interesting. Shall we review it? What did you think of it?
Brett: I really enjoyed it, I thought it was great.
Babsi: Why?
Brett: Well it was really well written, funny all the usual stuff. It was like When Harry Met Sally funny.
Babsi: It's not as good as When Harry Met Sally because, it was good, but the acting wasn't all that great. The main actor is no Billy Crystal and none of those three women are a Meg Ryan.
Brett: I get a bad vibe off him actually. I had to ignore that to enjoy the movie.
Babsi: Really?
Brett: Yeah.
Babsi: No he was ok, he was alright.
Brett: Well we'll see. I've got nothing to base it on. I'll have to do a bit of research in Hello and OK, see what his private life is like.
Babsi: Well no, you can't judge an actor by what his private life is like, that's ridiculous. I don't agree with that.
Brett: Tom Cruise
Babsi: Ah Tom Cruise is just an idiot, we know that. He's a complete freak. Yeah but that's wrong, to judge somebody by their private life.
Brett: He seems to have bad vibes, like he's not nice.
Babsi: I thought he was too nice to be true actually, in the part.
Brett: But it seemed to me that was an act. Like he was gritting his teeth through it.
Babsi: Maybe, so you didn't quite buy his acting. What I thought was brilliant about the film was that it was set in during the first Clinton campaign and he was trying to get Clinton elected. He was phoning people up and trying to sell them tickets to fund-raising dinners, that was funny. The whole background was interesting. I liked the people who worked there, especially the copy girl person. She was cool, she got a bit soppy with the whole proposing thing and that was cheesy but it's an American movie and you've got to expect a bit of cheese.
Brett: There was a lot of cheese, like the kid being very grown up and wise about relationships, that was so cheesy.
Babsi: It was a bit cheesy but I like Abigail Braislin. She was very good in Little Miss Sunshine.
Brett: She acted it well, yeah.
Babsi: She acted it really well.
Brett: But it's a cheesy contrived thing to make a story move along. And that was the first thing on screen, so my initial reaction was, “Oh dear. What have I let myself in for?” But it worked in the end.
Babsi: It did work. I think it did work. She was a bit too good to be true. All the characters were a bit too good to be true. The copy girl wasn't though she was a bit more interesting.
Brett: In the end she was. He told her to get her act together and she became the head of some charity fund-raising company or something and all of a sudden was a millionaire living in a brown stone in New York.
Babsi: You always get that, the big whopping enormous apartments. But then the main character went through a time when he was just drinking and not really getting anything together and lived in a small apartment and I reckon that was fairly realistic. But it was good, it leaves you with a good feeling, which I usually don't get from American movies.
Brett: It was good and it was about a modern relationship.
Babsi: Little Miss Sunshine was a lot better. You really can't compare it at all.
Brett: I loved Little Miss Sunshine
Babsi: It was good. That really was a good movie. But it was an independent one and Definitely, Maybe is a blockbuster. There's your big difference. Although not all art movies are good, Last Days for example is destined for our bottom drawer ( bottom drawer list will follow soon). It's a sort of arty movie about Kurt Kobain and it's terrible.
Brett: It's rubbish, nobody says anything the whole movie. There's a couple of grunts and one yelp but no dialog.
Babsi: You see his butt in the first scene and you think, “This could be a good movie.”
Brett: (Shrieks)
Babsi: Well yeah, but you know...
Brett: That's when the dread really started to set in for me.
Babsi: Well we are different. He looked ok, nice butt.
Brett: It was a bit pale.
Babsi: But leaving that aside, Rachel Weisz's character was quite interesting.
Brett: Yeah, but she put her job first, she was a journalist and she was doing a story on a politician the main character was working for and she went easy on the politician for him...
Babsi: No but she didn't, she published the dirt.
Brett: No she didn't and she got criticised for that so she did a follow up article. She really did her research, and that was when she found out he was dodgy and then published the dirt. And then she got criticised and everyone called her a “bitch”, but I thought if that was a mail character he'd be applauded for it.
Babsi: Ah, I see, I see. That's an interesting point.
Brett: When I saw it I thought, “Now that's weird.”
Babsi: Yeah but, it is very complicated. That sort of ended their relationship didn't it.
Brett: Yeah, that was a deal breaker. He walked out and they didn't see each other for a long time, and they were never close again. Just like that, over.
Babsi: But that's pretty realistic in a way. It can happen. Do you mean a woman would be more forgiving if she was working on a campaign and her boyfriend journalist wrote a negative piece on her candidate? Probably not. It's quite bad if you work for somebody and you write an article about their boss being dodgy.
Brett: I just thought if it was a male character, would people be saying, “It was wrong of him to do his job well?”
Babsi: Her character was really interesting. I thought all the female characters were quite interesting.
Brett: Yeah, apart from the high school sweetheart.
Babsi: But she slept with the flatmate, that was cool.
Brett: That was cool and modern, I liked that.
Babsi: It was interesting and modern so they didn't quite dare to paint her as quite fantastic and perfect, because the main character did at the beginning and you thought, “Oh dear, this is dull.” It was written well, it was a good script.
Brett: It was very witty.
Babsi: It was very funny. I loved his friends, the other guy on the campaign was funny, he was cool.
Brett: You just thought he was pretty. He didn't get the best lines and he wasn't the best actor.
Babsi: I thought he was pretty good.
Brett: He was all right.
Babsi: No I liked him.
Brett: I know you liked him that doesn't mean we can tell everyone he was a good actor.
Babsi: Beans to you, I thought he was a good actor and you'd better agree or you'll get some sand in your face.
Brett: Because we are lying on Bondi Beach recording this on a mobile phone, that's what the sand in the face thing is about.
Babsi: Yay, life is a breeze.
Brett: Life's a dream.
Babsi: On a Monday, I hate Mondays.
Brett: But this movie is good is what we are saying right.
Babsi: I thought it was good. I really liked the fact that it was set during the Clinton campaign. That was cool and they'd researched their stuff well. It was set in the early 90s and that was clever, and there was one bit where George W was on TV. He was just on TV and that was interesting.
Brett: Everyone was saying “Who's this idiot.”
Babsi: Yes! That was cool. I guess for an American movie, that makes it pretty out there. For an American romantic comedy it was pretty out there.
Brett: For an American movie I got a left wing vibe from it, because it showed divorce in a positive light. It wasn't conservative, I don't think, although he did get disillusioned with Clinton after working for him.
Babsi: I liked that, because it's in the beginning that you're all enthusiastic. Like the copy girl character, because she was all... she didn't give a monkey's. She worked on the campaign but she didn't care at all, which was interesting because if people work for the president you expect them to want him to win and that they're all behind it. But of course that's not the case. It never is. I thought she was cool and she had some cool views and I really liked her the most. She was funny and sort of quirky.
Brett: There was a cool scene where he criticised her cigarette choice because they were a bit more expensive than his Marlboroughs. He told her that she was just paying for the logo and she told him that hers actually costed less. They had a bet, and they went outside for a smoking race. And it turned out that his had a chemical in that made them burn faster and his was finished first.
Babsi: It was kind of funny and kind of clever.
Brett: There was lot's of well written stuff where they were flirting without really flirting. Yeah it was really cool. As a love story it worked really well.
Babsi: It did work really well, and they had good chemistry, and it was quite believable, They were just friends for a long time and she dated some hot dude called Kevin.
Brett: That was funny because it seemed like she'd made him up. It was almost like after they had that conversation she went out and found someone called Kevin. Because he didn't believe there was a Kevin.
Babsi: No I believed her, she was cute.
Brett: I didn't believe it either. When he went to the flat a month later and there was a Kevin there I was surprised. It was a funny scene anyway.
Babsi: There were a couple of things that could have been rubbish, like the book thing. You could have thought, “How tedious.” but it wasn't.
Brett: By the time the book turned up I liked the movie so much that I thought, “Oh well, I'm going to go with it.” And the kid thing, in another movie, nope, click, turn off.
Babsi: You had tears in your eyes though.
Brett: I was crying a bit, I liked it.
Babsi: Ah, what made you cry. You cried at Titanic as well.
Brett: That was only once though, in this one I cried two or three times. When she finally realised that she liked him too and she came back from Europe. But he already fancied someone else and he hadn't told her. She was crushed and I started crying a little bit.
Babsi: Ah, you're tragic.
Brett: She was being brave, she just pretended she didn't love him after all and gave him a hug, and was happy for him and stuff. And she did, like this wet eyes thing very well, like bambi. She did it three or four times in the movie and I got wise to it after a while and I even thought she might be just putting some chemical in there to make her eyes glisten. But the first time on the street when her eyes went watery it got to me.
Babsi: In Titanic they had to close the cinema because it was flooding with tears.
Brett: I'm going to declare this review over unless you behave yourself.
Babsi: No you behave yourself, and admit that you cried at Titanic.
Brett: I did, but so did you!
Babsi: No I didn't.
Brett: Yes you did.
Babsi: I did not.
Brett: You wept, it went beyond crying into weeping.
Babsi: You wept, you wept buckets. The cinema was drenched, they had to close the place afterwards. They had to put up a sign saying: "Closed because of too much crying." How lame is that?
Brett: You didn't wail, but you had to stifle the wails, there were some grunts and some snuffles.
Babsi: Titanic is beyond anything, it will be featured in our bottom drawer for being rubbish. So how many spirals for Definitely, Maybe then?
Brett: Not five that's for sure, but not one. Three?
Babsi: Three seems about right.

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Sydney

Babsi: We should talk about Sydney because that's where we are right now. And that's where we plan to be for quite a while, because it's awesome. This place rocks, rocks in capitals, it's so awesome.

Brett: So you're having a good time?

Babsi: This is the worlds best place. It's so versatile, and so interesting and it has lots of different suburbs which are also interesting. The suburbs of Sydney are not like the suburbs of Vienna, or somewhere dull like that. They are fascinating in their own way, interesting in their own right. It is a good place and it has a good vibe. It really does.

Brett: Yeah I agree, I agree. And it feels kind of safe. I might be wrong, we might have had just a lucky couple of weeks.

Babsi: It is really safe. You walk around at 4 o'clock in the morning and it's cool. It's not aggressive and creepy and wild like London. London is a scary place. You sometimes wonder if you'll make it back home alive, or maybe that's a bit over the top.

Brett: No, I've wondered that sometimes on the night buses in London, “Am I gonna get out of this alive?”

Babsi: I know, but that's definitely not the case in Sydney. And you don't get bored with it, you stay here and you don't do the same thing every day. The city is chaotic and it drags you to different places every day, depending on where you stay and depending on what you decide to do. It's a place whose sights don't get boring, it doesn't get boring to look at the Opera House. It just sits there and it is so fascinating, it looks like a sleeping dinosaur.

Brett: How many times have we been down here to the Opera House? We're sitting here right now in the little café, The Oyster Bar on the wharf looking right at it. How many times do you reckon?

Babsi: It really is the most beautiful wharf. Hmm twenty, thirty maybe. It's ridiculous, we've seen it in all different lights. Maybe not in the early morning, but...

Brett: Ha, Ha, Ha, yeah maybe not then.

Babsi: More often the late evening. Sydney a great place, it really is cool, beautiful.

Brett: Is it a bit spread out?

Babsi: It is but in the inner city you are still near the ocean. There is a bit of traffic but here at the ocean it is so peaceful and you get away from everything. The city bit can be busy and annoying but you just have to find your little corner where you can go and hide. It is so calm and the people are so nice.

Brett: I like the way you travel around town by ferry.

Babsi: Yeah, yeah it has something very Venetian in that. The ferries are like vaparetos, but big, big vaparetos. They are not the tiny Italian ones, they are really quite big and they can take a lot of people. They're great, it makes it really quite beautiful, to be able to travel from place to place in the city by boat. It's awesome.

Brett: Because the city is built round a really big harbour.
Babsi: The public transport is really quite good.

Brett: Absolutely, the public transport is excellent, but the accommodation situation is a nightmare.

Babsi: Yeah the accommodation is hard work, mind you we are not in the higher end of hotel.

Brett: Yeah but there is nothing mid range. There are ridiculously over designed and expensive hotels...

Babsi: And they are still ugly.

Brett: ...or backpackers, and there is nothing in-between. You'll find a concrete shed with shared toilets or a motel outside of town.

Babsi: And that a part of town as beautiful as Balmain has only one place to stay in that whole lovely area is stupid. And they have all these places that used to be hotels, but they are not anymore, and that is very confusing.

Brett: They are on every street corner. So you have places called something like Hotel Kangaroo but they aren't hotels they're pubs.

Babsi: The Balmain Lodge is all right, and it is very, very cheap, if you stay for a week it's cheap.

Brett: It's very cheap, but you share a toilet and the walls are white washed brick.

Babsi: It is really ugly. Luckily I brought some fairy lights on holiday with us and when I put the fairy lights up the place wasn't so bad.

Brett: Yeah, if you had to depend on the light they actually have fitted in the room you'd get sick. It's some horrible neon thing that goes, “bzzt, bzzt, hum.”

Babsi: We should write about them on trip advisor.

Brett: Yeah we should, and let people know what they're in for. And the staff, these old Australian men in shorts, “G'day, we hosed the room down for yer, in yer go.”

Babsi: Yeah, it's pretty creepy but it's cheap, and Balmain is a great area to stay in.

Brett: It reminded me of trendy areas of London like Hampstead. Like Hoxton but better groomed, like Camden without the atmosphere of threat.

Babsi: But it's different because it has so much water, and that's essential. Places like Vienna don't have any water at all, and that's really painful and you feel it in the city.

Brett: Yeah, it makes a difference to the temperature, the heat in Vienna can be unbearable.

Babsi: On a really hot day in the summer you feel like you're going to die.

Brett: And air conditioning is unheard of in Vienna, I think there are only three buildings that have it.

Babsi: I hate air conditioning so I'm not so unhappy about that. The architecture here is so interesting. What I find interesting is the contrast between the old architecture and the new architecture. They really, really go together. Like here at Circular Quay you have all the skyscrapers but you also have a building that looks like it was built in the 30s. You see these buildings from different periods right next to each other all over the city and I find that interesting. And all these sights, I mean Sydney Harbour Bridge is stunning, the Opera House is the same, photographs don't do it justice. You have to just stand in front of it and admire it, and I'm not one for opera houses, I really don't care about them. And you can see plays in it, it's not just the opera. There is heaps of live music, so you don't have to go to expensive clubs to dance your heart out. Something prestigious like the Opera Bar can be young and funky like a club. They have free DJs all the time, like every day. Come here to Sydney and spend as long as possible.

Brett: We've raved about Balmain, but what do you think of Bondi?

Babsi: Oh I love it. Bondi is a lot like Brighton but with better weather. How could I not love Bondi, Bondi is kind of cool. The whole of Sydney is cool and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

Brett: Even with the accommodation problem?

Babsi: Pack your own fairy lights to brighten up places like Balmain Lodge, and I would still recommend it, it's so cheap.

Brett: I think only for young people.

Babsi: The North Shore Hotel is all right.

Brett: But it's hot, everything is cheap, the toaster set the fire alarm off, it's sticky, you can't open the windows because of some strange security system.

Babsi: It's still only something like 60 euros a night, even for two people. Another thing I would recommend is the weekly bus ticket, because Sydney is so spread out. And the ticket is good for the ferries as well.

Brett: In Vienna you can just wander about in the middle of town and see most of what you want to see. It's not like that here in Sydney.

Babsi: Well Sydney is ten times bigger. You've just got to live with that. Seriously we're talking about Sydney, Vienna is more like a town compared to that. You absolutely can't compare it.

Brett: Where would Sydney be in your top ten cities?

Babsi: Oh, er, hard, erm, probably 1.

Brett: One thing we have discussed a couple of times though is, what about white Australian people's attitude to the rest of the world and their own aboriginal people.

Babsi: It's difficult, a change of prime minister was definitely a good thing for Australia. I felt that immediately when it was announced and we were back in Vienna. I thought that was very good news for Australia .

Brett: I agree.

Babsi: He creates awareness of aboriginal peoples concerns, the necessity to have representation in parliament. We were warned in New Zealand that peoples attitudes to these issues was worse in Australia but I'm not sure that's true, there was an unpleasant undercurrent in New Zealand as well, but it's good to have a prime minister who cares. I think there is a change happening in Australia, I think it makes a big difference who is at the top. It will make a difference if Barak Obama wins in America, a huge difference actually, a difference you can see immediately. It makes a difference if Prodi is in charge in Italy instead of Berlusconi.

Brett: That welcome ceremony we watched on TV here, they opened Parliament and for the first time he said sorry to the aboriginal people and aboriginal people were part of the opening ceremony for Parliament, and he said he wanted that to become a tradition that would continue, which would never have happened under Howard.

Babsi: Prodi has ideas about making property cheaper in Venice, so maybe this could happen in Sydney.

Brett: You can never predict how it's going to turn out on the ground in politics, but the trying makes a difference. I mean Clinton tried to change the health system, she tried it, and that makes a difference. It puts it on the agenda.

Babsi: So would that make you vote for Clinton or Obama? That's what I want to know.

Brett: I hope they get together and they are a president, vice president team.

Babsi: But which of them would be president though, ha, ha. It's so hard.

Brett: I would want Clinton to be in charge. To reverse the normal stereotypical, man in charge, woman second in command roles.

Babsi: But that's ridiculous, are you telling me that you would not want Obama.

Brett: I would secretly want Obama.

Babsi: I want Obama because the whole system is a bit sticky and dodgy and if Bill Clinton got back to the White House you have got to think about this.

Brett: Anyone who gets to this level in politics is no angel. So is it an issue in Australia because...

Babsi: The interesting thing about Sydney is that it is still cosmopolitan. Sydney is probably more cosmopolitan than London, I can't explain it, it's just..., it's got to do with the attitudes. Because London is very cosmopolitan, and so on, and so on, but deep, deep, deep underneath, they're still racists. They really are, and here there might be more white people around and in jobs, but that was the same in London.

Brett: To get here today we just walked right through the business centre of town, and it was lunch time when the office people come out, and every single one of them was white. It was thin young women, executives and secretaries, and fat old men, the ones with the real power. It's the same as Vienna and London.

Babsi: Yes, yes, yes, but somehow, yeah I know what you mean. So London is more cosmopolitan in the look, and attitude but underneath, it's not perfect. The visuals of the street might be mixed but the attitudes are still the same.

Brett: But that's still important. A friend of mine once told me about how he liked it when he got on a bus in London and heard all the different languages from around the world. It's a groovy thing that you can be anyone and be accepted at least that much. Another friend of ours told us about the bad experiences he'd had in Australia because of being black.

Babsi: Absolutely they were racist. But that was Howard times. I really think that Sydney and all of Australia is in for a change. I feel really positive about it. I feel it's better than Vienna, because even though Vienna has all these people from the East, they are still very racist. And all these dodgy things keep happening that bring shame on Austria.

Brett: I don't want to say Australia is bad, it's not, it's just not good. Vienna is bad.

Babsi: Yes. Vienna is bad. In political campaigns you've got all these dodgy posters hanging all over the place. It's one big uncomfortable fact, and here, I think it's better here than Vienna, but I don't think London is so perfect, it is an issue. London is an interesting and special place and you'll never forget it but it is so grim. This grim thing, the British have taken it and made an art form out of it in music and painting and television.

Brett: We've only ventured into the suburbs here in Sydney a couple of times, but I found them grim.

Babsi: You found them grim? Balmain? no.

Brett: No, we just went to see the zoo and we walked through one of the suburbs, Mossman I think it is, anyway it's so suburban. Anyone who's seen Neighbours will recognise it. They are these mid size houses, kind of palatial but not a palace, bigger than a normal house. Gardeners turning up, kind of deserted because everyone is out at work apart from mums in jogging pants. Everything looked after and painted, awful, just awful place to live. The burbs, Wisteria Lane.

Babsi: But the funny thing is whatever bothers me in other places, doesn't bother me in Sydney. It's really weird.

Brett: Why is that?

Babsi: I don't know, I just like it too much.

Brett: I see.

Babsi: I don't know. I thought it was ok. I'd live in one of those houses if it meant I could stay in Sydney.

Brett: Gasp. You'd live in one of those horrible suburban little houses.

Babsi: If I could stay in Sydney yes.

Brett: My, my. So how many spirals would you give Sydney?

Babsi: Ten, but we only give five, so I'll give it four because of the accommodation.

Brett: Oh really?

Babsi: Hmm, the accommodation is really annoying.
Brett: Is there anywhere in the world you'd give five.

Babsi: Well I do like San Francisco.

Brett: But Bush is in charge and you vowed you'd never go to America while he's still in power.

Babsi: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. First Barak Obama has to get elected and then I can go to America again. And Schwarzeneger is governor so I have a problem with that too.

Brett: Yes as an Austrian, your countries most embarrassing...

Babsi: I really wish I wasn't Austrian. Every bad thing that happens seems to come from Austria somehow. I do like Italy, and Italy under Prodi is a fine thing.

Brett: So how about Venice?

Babsi: I don't know, probably.

Brett: So everybody should go to Venice, that's our recommendation?

Babsi: No, no, no Sydney, go to Sydney if you can as a student. Just go to Sydney. So how many spirals would you give Sydney.

Brett: Three.

Babsi: Oh, why?

Brett: It's a bit like a mall, all the architecture is modern, made of cheap stuff, made of plastic. All the rooms are square with low ceilings. Everything is nicely painted. It's not real.

Babsi: That's interesting. That's an interesting perspective. Now you say that, I can see it – but I don't agree, I don't.

Brett: Darling harbour especially is like a mall with no roof. They don't need one because the weather is so good.

Babsi: But it's so pretty with the water and the fountains.

Brett: It's not real like Venice.

Babsi: Venice is also bad for accommodation. You're kidding yourself man.

Brett: But it's real. The rats, the filth, but Jazz and people laughing.

Babsi: Sydney is real but in a different way.

Brett: It's a European idea imposed where it doesn't quite work and everyone is fighting hard to prevent the bush from taking it over again.

Babsi: No, that's the other cool thing. It's so green there is so much green stuff here.

Brett: Yeah, yeah, they allow little patches of bush as novelties but it's not part of their life, it's not who they are. They're in the pub, they're in the office, they're in the burbs.

Babsi: But that's just normal life.

Brett: Not in Vienna. Sitting in a Viennese café you are connected with the land, with history. Your waiter probably comes from a country subjugated by the Austrian Empire two hundred years before and still bears the grudge, he'll throw your coffee at you.

Babsi: That kind of real, I can really do without. And you'd still give it three spirals, you complain about it so much and you still give it three spirals. How many spirals would you give Vienna.

Brett: Three.

Babsi: WHAT? That's not true. You can't give Vienna three and Sydney three. Is there any city you would give five stars to.

Brett: That's hard. It has to be wind swept and majestic sometimes, but sometimes quite nice so you don't go bonkers. Venice.

Babsi: Venice, so that's your number one city in the whole world. It is quite cool. We're going to have to go live there and pine for Sydney. Though the vaparetos are a lot more expensive than a weekly ticket round here. Sydney is real and groovy in a different way.

Brett: What way?

Babsi: A different way.

Brett: What way?

Babsi: It's happy. It allows itself to be happy.

Brett: Maybe that's the feeling I'm uncomfortable with.

Babsi: Well then you're just weird.

Brett: I think that's a really good place to end, Sydney is happy.

Babsi: Come to Sydney

Brett: Drop everything and come to Sydney.

All photos by Barbara Stanzl http://pink-lioness.deviantart.com/

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Is Lost still any good?

Brett: Now what did we think of that? (Episode 3 of series 4 of Lost “The Economist”, which we just watched on channel 7 in Sydney)

Babsi: I don't know. It's always soo difficult with Lost. It's always so annoying, because just when you can't be bothered, because it's too unbearably annoying there is always something that catches your eye, or there is a little interesting bit at the end, or something you wonder about, or something revealing that just leaves you a bit astounded and interested. And then you end up watching the next stupid episode. This one was bizarre, and there have been lots of bizarre episodes, but I liked series one and two, I thought they were clever. I like the whole idea of it, but I think it needs to be careful not to just disappear up its own island.

Brett: How many new groups of people can be introduced? We've had the front section, the tail section, the others, the hostiles and now the freighter people.

Babsi: Well there was a bit of explanation and you can sort of guess where the others went to. We know what happened to the Dharma initiative, that we found out.

Brett: That they all got killed by people unknown.

Babsi: That's right, Ben killed them.

Brett: Now Ben is getting Sayid to kill people from the Dharma initiative off the island, but why would he do that?

Babsi: No they're gone, they're way gone. The other thing I noticed is that the woman he killed...

Brett: The German woman…

Babsi: The German woman, was wearing the same bracelet as Naomi, now that's weird.

Brett: That was a nice touch, there are a few nice touches, but you never find out any reason for them, any significance.

Babsi: No it's never really explained and then you sort of forget about it. I think it depends on the idea that people will just forget about it.

Brett: I think so, I mean in the first episode we find out that there is a monster – that's gone, that there are polar bears – they're gone.

Babsi: No but that was explained.

Brett: Yeah there were two cages, so they meet the two polar bears and shoot them in the first few episodes and then you never see any more polar bears. There is always stuff that you think is intriguing and interesting, but three episodes later it's gone. Michael, you can't kill him, but now he's gone. The French woman disappears for huge stretches of time and has no idea where the others are, but they are just in some huts a few miles away, how couldn't she find them?

Babsi: I don't know, it is a bit insane.

Brett: It's lashed together, I think he makes it up as he goes along.

Babsi: But there are odd bits of genius. The whole idea is quite good and the photography is awesome. Some of the photography is really mind blowing, though I didn't see any in this episode really, apart from the empty swings. That was kind of interesting.

Brett: I don't buy it that the two groups just fall apart. Everyone seemed to be pulling together for so long and all of a sudden they decide, “Why don't some of us go to the beach to be rescued and some of us go off and hide, shouldn't we even talk about it, I don't think that'll be necessary, lets just do it.” AND SUDDENLY LOCK IS THE LEADER? He turns up limping and gunshot wounded, stabs somebody and they think, “Ah this is the guy we need as our leader.” But I really enjoyed watching it and I'm definitely going to watch the next episode. I think it'll go on like this until it gets cancelled.

Babsi: It's clear that Ben survived, and the others might survive too, but it's weird because the new group is becoming the new others.

Brett: And then they talk about a war, “a war will come that nobody can prevent.”

Babsi: Well it presented a problem. The interesting thing is that J.J Abrams must have planed that somehow. He put together a group of characters that will find salvation on the island, like Kate and Sawyer who are criminals in the real world, but can survive on the island without ending up in jail. Others like Jack and Claire can’t wait to get of the island…

Brett: I don't think he did. I think he created a set up with a bunch of characters who he could keep writing for a long time. It's the same thing as with his other show Alias. It's written by the same guy and it has the same problems. Whenever a new character turns up and people ask them who they are or who they work for, they just give ambiguous answers. Or they look like they are finally going to reveal some answers, “Now I will tell you everything, oh wait my toast just popped up, I'll tell you later, now I've got to butter my toast.” Something always happens to stop them, a phone rings or someone comes in the room or something. The show keeps promising something really amazing is about to happen and then it doesn't.

Babsi: JJ Abrahms is a genius of promising stuff and not delivering.

Brett: What about the button. They had to keep pushing the button or the world was going to end and all that happened was the sky went pink and a Scottish guy's clothes fell off. I mean that's quite good, there's a show right there, but it didn't live up to what was promised, it wasn't Earth shattering.

Babsi: It was Earth shattering that the plane came down.

Brett: Every now and then some new characters turn up, they don't explain who they are and everyone gets on like a house on fire. “Do you like fish?”, “I'm sorry I'm not going to tell you anything about myself, I have to give JJ a lot of room to manoeuvre. He may decide later that I'm a killer robot, he may decide that I'm a fish, so the less I say the better.”

Babsi: Yeah, yeah, I see what you mean, that's probably true.

Brett: It's definitely true, he keeps writing himself into tighter and tighter corners, he's wriggling now. But I still like it.

Babsi: It is enjoyable, think about shows like Twin Peaks, went absolutely nowhere ever.

Brett: Twin Peaks, did you ever watch it?

Babsi: It was creepy as can be. I liked it in the beginning, it was hip and new and I was 16 and I enjoyed it.

Brett: I think J.J Abrahms is influenced by it. He must have watched it and thought, “Wow, people can get away with writing like that. Me too!

Babsi: Twin Peaks was going somewhere, but it had the same sort of problems. It introduced loads of new characters, there were lots of stories, lots of this, that and the other. It was quite arty and interesting but still it was a little crazy.

Brett: I have the same problem with the X Files, the first series was really good and there were lots of interesting plot elements, his superiors knew more than him and he found little clues, but after a while, things just got stranger and stranger and the big secret his superiors were hiding never got revealed.

Babsi: In Desperate Housewives things are different, things do get resolved. A new neighbour moves in, you eventually find out their secret and then another new neighbour replaces them.

Brett: That's it. They don't promise there's one big secret. It's suburban life with a lot of little secrets that eventually come out.

Babsi: There is series one and then series one is over. There is series two and series two is over, things get resolved. With Lost it's more an ongoing thing, and the actors look a bit lost, like, “Oh dear, what am I supposed to do?”

Brett. “Am I a good guy or a bad guy?”

Babsi: “I've got this gun, who am I supposed to point it at again?”

Brett: I feel a different emotion after watching this, than after watching a show in the first series. After a show in the first series I couldn't wait till the next one.

Babsi: And Kate is getting off with Sawyer again.

Brett: Apparently in the trailer for the next episode, that's going to happen.

Babsi: But even that storyline is getting boring.

Brett: The new characters, I don't care about at all. I care very much about the original characters and I was ready to commit to the characters from the tail section.

Babsi: Michel Rodriguez is a great actress, she gave a great performance.

Brett: But they all got written out. It's hard to care about the new characters.

Babsi: Why are they pretending that Michael is coming back. I saw Harold Perrinou name in the credits, the actor who plays Michael, but he wasn't in this episode.

Brett: Maybe he's going turn up later in the series.

Babsi: It's not great but it's not bad, I didn't expect that much really.

Brett: Do you still like it?

Babsi: It's getting a bit old now. I'd give it maybe two stars or something.

Brett: Spirals, we are going to be handing out spirals remember.

Babsi: Oh yes, that's true, two spirals then.

Brett: Out of how many. What's going to be our scale? We never decided.

Babsi: Out of five.

Brett: Two spirals out of five. I don't know isn't that harsh? What would you give series one, by the way?

Babsi: Probably five.

Brett: Five out of five, so it's dropped from five to two?

Babsi: Yes, I'm afraid so. I'm a bit disappointed.

Brett: Ok two it is, I agree with you.

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I Am Legend

Babsi: Lets discuss “I Am Legend”. We watched it in Nelson two weeks ago now and I sort of expected the typical creepy zombie movie with freaks around and that sort of stuff. Which it kind of was in the end as well. I thought Will Smith’s performance was excellent. It was really good the way he talked to the dog at the start and then when the dog is dead he is alone, that was excellent. The flash backs were very clever but in the end it turned a little bit religious and strange.

Brett: That scene where the serum, the blood reaches the settlement, reaches safety, the town that is going to save everything, and it is such an American stereotype of a place.

Babsi: Yep. The Americans always have to do that. They always have to chuck in this type of thing somewhere.

Brett: There is this white-painted wooden church with the stars and stripes flying. But I still loved the movie, I really, really enjoyed it. It scared the daylights out of me.

Babsi: It didn’t scare me.

Brett: You weren’t scared?

Babsi: Mmm, it was a bit predictable. There were some good bits, very arty Ideas with the manikin. The zombies used the manikin to trap him. That was very cleverly done.

Brett: Yeah the manikin he said hello to every day. The zombie took it and used it as bait in a trap after he’d used blood as bait in a trap for them.

Babsi: That was really clever and sort of unpredictable in a way.

Brett: Yeah. I even had seen a photograph from the movie of him hanging from the lamppost, and it still caught me by surprise.

Babsi: The photography was absolutely outstanding. In the beginning New York overgrown by jungle, I mean that is just a cool image, stunning. In cities like Singapore and Sydney you don’t have to do that because they are overgrown by jungle anyway, so it doesn’t really matter, but in a place like New York it’s more like a concrete jungle. And all the animals at the beginning, that was well done.

Brett: Although I think the animals were a little bit computer graphicsey sometimes.

Babsi: No, I didn’t think so.

Brett: They would move too fast for a real animal, turn corners that were too tight.

Babsi: It wasn’t too bad I thought.

Brett: No they were good. It wasn’t too bad, I’ve seen a lot worse.

Babsi: It was a clever story but the problem is that these films are good at the beginning and in the middle sort of just go a bit off.

Brett: What was that point in the middle that…?

Babsi: When that woman appeared, it just didn’t really work.

Brett: Yeah, I agree, up until that moment it was all absolutely hanging together and then when she effortlessly rescues him, off screen, just by setting off a few fireworks.

Babsi: That was absolutely ridiculous. I didn’t trust her either. I thought she was spy for the zombies.

Brett: She was so unbelievable, you didn’t trust her. As if she was so unbelievable on purpose. She was so well groomed. I thought he was fantasizing her for a moment.

Babsi: She kept talking about the colony, and how the colony actually existed. I thought “What’s that all about?” But there were lots of interesting details in the movie that I liked. For example, he liked listening to Bob Marley. It was a good scene and his apartment is really interesting. He kept watching the old news which was interesting and confusing at the same time.

Brett: The only clue that it was old news was a tape counter box at the bottom of the screen and other than that it wasn’t explained at all. I liked that touch.

Babsi: And there was this cartoon bit, what was it? Shreck. Where he knows the words of the Donkey character.

Brett: Why was that interesting?

Babsi: Because I guess it was a film he had watched with his daughter. Maybe that was the reason, it was a light little touch.

Brett: Alright I get that now. I didn’t get that at the time.

Babsi: And that cinema in Nelson is kind of cool.

Brett: Yeah, it’s a nice little Art Deco cinema. So, you said you liked Will Smith’s performance.

Babsi: I really liked his great speech scene. When people have a speech like, “Friends, Romans, countrymen,…” that’s a speech, to the audience. If they have a few people there, which would be the case in “Julius Caesar”, and so they can address these people but he is on his own. I guess that's why he used a video camera, it helped his performance a lot.

Brett: His acting, on his own, in the lab with just the recording equipment …

Babsi: …was very, very believable. He’s the lead character so he has to make it believable. The movie stands and falls with him. They still managed to spoil it a bit with her performance which did not work and was not believable and he again became unbelievable because it’s like a game play really. As an actor you use the partner and you throw a ball at them and they throw a ball back at you, more friendly, more violent, whatever you want but you need that. If you don’t have that partner it’s harder, a lot more difficult. You use the audience, ok so the theatre has the audience which is something that can be used, but if you don’t have an audience, well I guess you could use the camera people of course, anyway he’s come a long, long wayfrom those "Fresh prince of Bell-air" days.

Brett: You know what I think was going on in that? Because it was supposed to be where he was taken to safety, and he’s supposed to spend this beautiful relaxed day with her and then the danger is supposed to start again at nightfall. And I think the director was trying to make it very, very safe. To make her relaxed. To make her kid relaxed. So he made her well groomed and beautiful. So you begin to relax and think this is a new part of the movie, a new safe place, and then when danger comes again you’re supposed to be even more shocked maybe. Maybe that’s what they were trying to do.

Babsi: Maybe, but it didn’t work. The energy became saggy in the movie.

Brett: Yeah it totally drained out.

Babsi: A typical Hollywood blockbuster, half of it worked, half of it didn’t.

Brett: I don’t think this was the typical Hollywood blockbuster though. I mean there were elements of it that were but they were trying for something more. Something more like classic science fiction from the 60s, something like Omega Man or…

Babsi: It wouldn’t be in my top ten but the photography was good and I did enjoy it but American Gangster was better.

Brett: I liked about this movie that the skyscrapers were full of threat. The zombies were hiding in the dark in the skyscrapers so he had to stick to the streets and zoom through quite quickly in cars.

Babsi: I bet he enjoyed that, I bet it was fun to be the only person who can zoom round. The beginning was sort of funny because he played golf and did all these strange things.

Brett: I think it was a very beautiful movie like a painting. Almost like they had limited their pallet of colours, I remember it very brown, very Naples yellow, very yellow ochre.

Babsi: I remember it very green. There were a few scenes that were very impressive when he went out in the car to shoot food. I still think that Twelve Monkeys was a lot better – even though it was crazy.

Brett: This film was scarier.

Babsi: No, no I don’t agree.

Brett: What do you mean by scared, this one was “Oh I’m shocked!” scary and Twelve Monkeys was “Oh dear the world is a strange place!” scary.

Babsi: No Twelve Monkeys was scarier and more touching somehow, because even though in "I am Legend"he loses his wife and his kid.

Brett: This one wasn’t touching – the emotions.

Babsi: The energy of the actors really worked in the play we saw recently (As You Like It, see previous post) worked really well and Will Smith was such a strong link on his own but he couldn’t just hold it somebody bad came in – her, and she really wasn’t any good – and it fell apart.

Brett: Was she bad or was she given bad direction?

Babsi: She had a really strange part but she could have made it stronger. A Cate Blanchett would have probably made it quite strong and quite believable, but she didn’t.

Brett: No she seemed too relaxed, she was supposed to have saved him from zombies and driven him across New York.

Babsi: And you know, people out there feel free to comment on this, and maybe tell us you’re opinion because we want to make this open and let people get involved. In my opinion he was really good by himself, you see this a lot in the theatre as well, people are really good and strong and then a bad character comes in and really messes it up. I mean Johnny Depp was almost too strong in Pirates of the Caribbean, even those two whelps Keira and Orlando couldn’t mess it up.

Brett: So we were talking about I Am Legend and Twelve Monkeys.

Babsi: Twelve Monkeys is an old film, but Terry Gilliam really thought about what he was doing and Twelve Monkeys is altogether more scary. There is more threat, and they both are about viruses and stuff but in Twelve Monkeys the rhythm is better, and the photography. Although the photography isn’t all “Oh I’m an arty movie and I have to be all arty in my photography”, which I Am Legend was, it was purposely arty. Twelve Monkeys was arty by accident almost, bleaker, greyer.

Brett: I think Twelve Monkeys must be arty on purpose. You have to give Terry Gilliam that, he puts together stunning visuals, often on limited budgets. Watching that Man from Lamancha documentary he got some amazing visuals with just some little people and a handycam.

Babsi: But it was so clever because of the music from the group Gotan Project, who were very successful when Twelve Monkeys was out. It is such great, fantastic, haunting music.

Brett: When we are talking about Twelve Monkeys, we are talking about what Terry Gilliam did and when we are talking about I Am Legend we are talking about what Will Smith did.

Babsi: That’s really interesting actually.

Brett: When we are talking about Twelve Monkeys we aren’t talking about what Bruce Willis did.

Babsi: No, he was good, he was fine but there were lots of them – Madeline Stowe was really good, Brad Pitt was really good. Actually Brad Pitt was surprisingly good though I’m not the worlds biggest Brad Pitt fan, but he was good in that. Whether that has got to do with the directing or him, I don’t know.

Brett: I don’t know he can be good sometimes. I thought he was good in Ocean’s Eleven. So why was Twelve Monkeys scarier?

Babsi: It was interesting, because the funny thing was it was all set up about this group of people, and it just turned out that the rather nice funny people we were just trying to save the animals and the threat was from somewhere else and that’s frightening. And the way it’s between the future and the past, it was very timeless. I think Twelve Monkeys will always have a bigger status than I Am Legend even if the title of I Am Legend which is a bit pompous and Twelve Monkeys is a more modest title.

Brett: I think the two films have a different view of American society. When you are watching Twelve Monkeys, American society is some kind of strange monolith, like a Kafkaesque or Orwellian society which doesn’t know what it is doing even to itself.
And in I Am Legend it seems to be a benevolent society that is trying to cure cancer, but makes a mistake, and if it believes in the stars and stripes and white wooden churches it can get back from those mistakes. It’s gone too far with science and .. I Am Legend is much more conservative, probably. It would be the sort of movie Charlton Heston would have made back in the 60s – like Omega Man or Soylent Green.

Babsi: I can’t tell you how much one of Terry Gilliam’s other movies, Brazil scared me. It scared me so much I didn’t even want to go to Brazil. ( I saw it when I was 15 and had no clue that it was not about Brazil) I don’t even know why on earth it’s called Brazil, it’s not set in Brazil, whatsoever. It was really frightening. It’s about a mistake in administration leading to the dude being taken away, and these people come through the ceiling. It’s really, really scary.

Brett: Twelve Monkeys was like Brazil 2, it was almost the same society.

Babsi: The difference was that I Am Legend was a different type of scary. It was scary but not scary enough.

Brett: It was trying to say "don’t worry, our society is basically good and it will survive, no matter how bad it gets". The films have almost the same subject but they are done completely differently. Will smiths character is very disciplined and methodical, he was watching every video in the video store from A to Z.

Babsi: That was actually funny, even if you are alone in the world you still have to be disciplined because of the threat. How would the story work if he was just alone in the world with nobody else? What would could you do with the story then? They had to create a threat other wise… Take out the zombies altogether and you get a castaway kind of situation which could work.

Brett: I think that would be a really interesting movie. It might even be scarier.

Babsi: The way he recorded his diary on video and talked about himself. “I am doctor …etc.” That was good, and arty in a "Lost" kind of way. Even film directors must be fans of Lost, scary. To sum it all up, it was good when he was alone, the photography was good, I can still see pictures in my mind’s eye.

Brett: Me too, the destruction, emptiness and desolation stay with you.

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Review of "As You Like It"

We went to see a great play yesterday, by the Bell Shakespeare Company at the Sydney Operahouse Studio.

Brett: What should be in the illustration for As You Like It by the Bell Shakespeare Company at the Sydney Opera House in the Studio? My God, that’s a great thing for the first review.

Babsi: It is, it’s cool, it’s very cool. It’s very classy.

Brett: I’ll do the shape of the Sydney Opera House in the background and then the play will be in the middle.

Babsi: And maybe then the group of actors and their dancing.

Brett: Yeah because that was an important thing about the play wasn’t it? The group of actors and the movement. There was the wrestling and dancing, and there was the forest moving, it was cool. So were the actors more important than the play?

Babsi: Well the actors are part of the play. No play exists without the actors and actors can’t exist without a play, unless it’s improvised. I really liked it. I’ve seen lots of theatre plays with proper stage props and proper stuff and here it was more imagined. With the actors representing the forest and some of the actors pretending to be sheep, which I think is such fun.

Brett: Yeah and there was that bit where an actor pretended to be a mouse and another one pretended to be an owl, holding chairs for wings that swooped out of the sky bit him on the neck and took him away.

Babsi: It was just a mixture of everything that the theatre can do, really. That was what the special thing was. It wasn’t just theatre. Usually theatre and music are far apart.

Brett: And with the lighting as well they managed to make a big difference between the court and the forest.

Babsi: Yeah very different lighting, that was very well done.

Brett: The court looked like something out of 1984 with extravagant military uniforms and in the forest they were all dressed like extras from an impressionist painting.

Babsi: And the Australian accent didn’t hurt the Shakespearean feeling. If anything it helped it a lot. The acting itself was the strongest thing. It was a partnership. The people had melted into their parts. It wasn’t just, oh god I’m standing here I have to say a lot of stupid stuff, it wasn’t like that at all. I think Baz Lurman would have liked it a lot. And the Jester, though I didn’t immediately get that it was the Jester was very mixed, part old-fashioned, part modern.

Brett: Yeah they put the costumes into a different period didn’t they.

Babsi: The costumes were very sort of what? 30s.

Brett: Yeah there was some of that, but there was also some modern combat gear, I thought it was going to be set in Afghanistan for a moment.

Babsi: The costumes by Jennie Tate were stunning, they were very interesting. It was a fantastic experience it really was.

Brett: We could talk a little bit about what each actor did. For instance there was the main role, do you remember what the actress was called?

Babsi: Saskia Smith. Her performance was interesting. There was a very interesting transformation. Rosalind was, in the beginning a bit subdued, and you can’t quite work out immediately what the story is. But when she becomes a man she really transforms and the actress transforms. That was Shakespeare’s point as well, wanting to talk strongly about gender issues.

Brett: Was that in the play or was that just her performance? Did she just let rip a bit more? Because she didn’t have that much to say before at all did she?

Babsi: I think Shakespeare’s is quite a modern approach, somehow. They didn’t put Mercucio in Romeo and Juliet, the Baz Lurman film, in drag for no reason. The drag custome was important. And his was a very, very strong performance.

Brett: So you liked her better when she was playing a man?

Babsi: Yeah, I liked her better when she was playing a man because it was stronger and she could do a lot more with her body. Suddenly she was wearing pants and that made a big difference. She was a bit freer, moving around. Again a costume issue which is really, really interesting, and I guess it was directed that way as well, saying she really comes to life when she goes travelling and there was this whole great scene in the forest in the play. The forest plays such an important part in the play.

Brett: The forest is beautiful, they talk about snakes and lions, it’s supposed to be an English forest but it’s full of French people. It’s a very dreamlike place isn’t it? And in this forest there are lots of Australian shepherds with thick Australian accents and adlibbing Australian jargon and slang as well.

Babsi: The two brothers were both good. Orlando and his brother made the play happen from the beginning. They were both perfect for the parts, they were excellent. I’d rather see someone like them playing big movie roles. The actor playing Orlando would have been good in Pirates of the Caribbean in a Guy Pearce kind of way.

Brett: He had a real innocence and openness.

Babsi: In the play the first scenes are extremely important, I liked the Duchess. And she was also great in the role of the shepherdess.

Brett: Yeah it was a huge transformation but I thought she was the butt of too many jokes, it was a little misogynistic. And the jokes didn’t seem to be all Shakespearian, some of them seemed to be ad-libbed by the cast.

Babsi: Yeah of course. I think they made a lot of stuff up. The ventriloquist bit was strange.

Brett: Was that in Shakespeare’s stage directions, we have to look it up on Wikipeadia.

Babsi: The actress playing Celia was good, she worked quite well with Rosalind. Those characters worked well together.

Brett: That’s true, some of the things Rosalind does are a bit odd and Celia’s reactions with just hand movements would say What? That was cool and that really helped to sell it.

Babsi: And I liked that Melancholy guy.

Brett: What about that Jester guy because I suppose that’s a huge role.

Babsi: He was sometimes a bit too much but he could be very interesting. I mean his abilities, what he could do with his body was quite amazing. And that was true of all the actors.

Brett: Yeah, they brought a crash mat out to do the wrestling and the Jester did some tumbling on the crash mat before the wrestling started. There was a real energy about that, in one of the opening scenes.

Babsi: The double role of the actress playing Phoebe and the, I don’t know what she was supposed to be in the other scene….

Brett: She was just one of the guards in military uniform, looked like an extra from Deep Space 9 or something…

Babsi: The double role, when an actress plays two parts, that’s when it gets interesting in terms of ability.

Brett: And she played the shepherdess like a modern Australian young woman from.. like a modern shepherdess. It was like something from Little Britain, but the Australian version.

Babsi: And it was very funny when they became goats just eating Audrey's dress.

Brett: It was actually funny.

Babsi: They were as annoying as goats are.

Brett: It was a great experience.

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