What Would Jesus Buy?

heaven, revisited

a couple of friends and I watched this recently - myself for the umpteenth time, the ladeez for the first time. the deep swoon that ensued was complete. I maintain .. despite all the gorjus flicks seen since first discovering this jewel .. that it's one of the best films ever made. while your love stories are thick on the ground, soulmates rarely get a look in. and even when they do, they're usually all treacle and yearning ... twilight style. this is soulmate discovery for grown ups. no yearning, no mooning (full, eclipsed, or otherwise), no Crazy Wild Sex (there is wild sex, but the setting adds the wild, not the sweat), just complete and galvanizing realisation of something so profound that it transcends the most awful and terminal of events. no happy ending, but the most beautiful ending imaginable.

what $15k can buy

picked this one up with the montreals t' other day. watched, was gently impressed by the authenticity of it all, then took the time to read up on it just cause it was ... you know ... different. yet again, youngish dude (this time a pom) writes, directs, and does all the CGI on his home computer. two actors (who are apparently a real life couple - cast for that reason), the rest of the cast locals with zero acting experience, and a total budget of $15,ooo. un-fkn-believable. especially when help up against 'avatar'. it should be added that it's not really about the monsters. well, it is and it isn't. in effect they barely get a look in. if the monsters are the monsters. anyway, you get the drift.

creepiness & cat ladies

the next installment in my accidental montreal film festival ... spare, blackly funny, well cast mystery thing. noir-ish and well done, if you like your thrillers remote and inexplicable. I do, and did :)

non-subliminal message to lurking fleas

BOO!

love, imagined

picked this one up on a whim yesterday, feeling that while it would probably be dire, poseur nonsense, at least it was in Fronch :p man o man was I wrong. tres wrong. an absolute jewel of a flick. at first glance easy to pass off as a pretentious homage to style without substance, but full focus rewards with meat and potatoes galore. superbly acted, one of the best scores I've heard in ages, and wonderful cinematography. superb use of colour and arthouse references galore for the eagle-eyed. I almost drowned in it :D worth noting ... and this is no Small Thing, you might want to take a seat ... it was written, directed and performed by the same dude - at the age of 21. one xavier dolan, quebecoire auteur and child genius. evidently. rent it and roll around in the marvellousness. oh yeah, the theme is unrequited love, and I think, the idea of the object of passion as cipher. one's youth revisited, in other words :)

And so it is nearly Christmas

And we all know that it is the silly season, so as such before I get swept up with all the hooha that goes with it all I thought that I would send my thoughts and well wishes to you all.
Merry Christmas
Stay safe and well

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS - Review

Hey, this is gorgeous. The Wallace and Grommit folk had a bit to do with it. Very funny, very fast paced. Just when you think the US were the last word on good animation with Toy Story 3....voiceovers from Hugh Laurie (Steve) and the ever present and adorable Jim Broadbent (Santa) are almost upstaged by Bill Nighy (Grand Santa) and Imelda Staunton (Mrs Santa). Its not a case of taking kids to a kids movie and coping, you'll have lots of fun yourself with this one. Sis and I took 5 kids including an 18 month old and a 2 year old. We sat at the back of the cinema, earning the gratitude of the rest of the patrons, and our 5 year olds fought with each other all the way through....they loved it. Go, have fun :D

slam

that was my window of opportunity closing for the hols. suffice to say, more malcontents to be drummed up to replace joel and jonesy asap. stand by. hiya chris and marie, hiya latish posters, hiya uh-mericans, hi little nipply badgers :D see yaz when kids allow access to puter :/

I Still Miss ColdAngel....

...if anyone hears from him, let him know we found some Christmas Badgers for him

Chris and Marie mosaic lantern Adv for Plant Nursery

I have insomnia.

WTF???? Mark 2

Act 1 of the Drama: I've been trying to work out why I can only view 3 posts at the moment. Anyone have any idea? If I want to look at all of the posts from today I need to do extra clicking and they're all already stored under 'older posts'. Much love to whoever made the change, but it's a little over efficient... I like reading lots of posts & i'm lazy..if they're archived I'll never get to them. It seems weird to be already archiving stuff from today, too...I dont have any posts up past the current Viggo, who's gorgeous, but shouldnt be the last word on Thurs 15th Dec....

Act 2 of the Drama: I've tried to go into Design and change it back, but i cant work out how.

Act 3, With a Twist: Whilst searching for a way to change it back, i came upon an odd little piece of latin text in our blog. Thusly:
Lorem ipsum vim ut utroque mandamus intellegebat, ut eam omittam ancillae sadipscing, per et eius soluta veritus. ...

Act 4: So i googled it. It means: This command was aware of both the force of that, to say nothing of her handmaid, including, by fearing and his loosed. ...
Apparently it's dummy text and the history of it is here:
http://www.lipsum.com/

Which is all very interesting.
But I still dont know why I can only view 3 posts from today at one time.
Can anyone change it back, please?

hmmmm

I blame the lily-livered gaines.

statistically speaking

just checked stats for this week, after not having looked at 'em for months ... and it appears we have more uh-mericans perving than strayans. how do we account for this? are we not insulting them enough or something? hiya uh-merigos :D

Hi Guys!

Sorry I have not been around much lately, 'it' has been a madhouse, I have had half a day of rest so I thought I should check in. I will try and get a chance to read and reply to posts before Christmas, but if I miss peoples who have already left on holidays or their kidlets are home soon and therefore cannot get on here, have an awesome break!

Chris and Marie neighbours begonne PLANT NURSERY 730neig

Like I was saying, Chris and Marie. Nude.

oranges

yesterday ... and yeah I know this is totally not kosher, but he made me do it ... the toolkit and I ventured into the nearest "fruit" superstore. you see toolsworth had privately workshopped the idea of podding our spawn this festivus - much to my quell horreueueuer and surprise. the whole setup is designed with one thing in mind ... brainwashing. get 'em hard, and get 'em young, should be their motto. the minute you trepidatiously crossed the threshold, wondering all the while if indeed you really want to enter a place so patently and slickly designed to confound the over 25s and delight the under 15s, a red clad under 25 bounds up to you with an ear to ear grin and carries on like a right pork chop .. just as though he was your BFF fo-eva! I found myself wanting to scream back at our red fool, my frown as fierce as his grin, "WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BACK OFF!" instead I smiled politely and pretended I couldn't speak english. in other words, left him to toolshed. the minute he bounded off I muttered all sorts of colourfuls in the general direction of the co-parent, to the effect that none of it was worth the sheer pain of being in such a place. have any of you been into one of these dens of craziness? there is no 'counter', nor cash registers, nor any sign of any sort of moneyed transaction being possible or indeed, wanted. they go to huge lengths to make it seem almost as though it's just friends exchanging gizmos and 'learning together'. there are plenty of apparent 'workstations', and get this ... no seats. anywhere. just bank after bank of stand up tables covered with tethered fruit. and of course, 40,000 glassy eyed nerds. I hated it, with sugar on top. sorry steve.

Bizarre Chinese Old-folks Choir Covers Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance"

Found by husby the piano man for your edification...

website review: Scambaiting sites!

I'm an old fashioned gal. The scambaiting sites have probably been around for at least a decade. You lot are probably all au fait with them. I've only discovered them this week, tho...

So. Basic idea is that there are folk out there with time on their hands, who actually answer the scamming emails from Nigerians seeking help transferring funds/bequeathing deceased estates/winning lotteries and all the rest of it. Did you realise that those scams are still generating millions of dollars? (one account I read stated that it's still a $12 million industry). I get lots of em in my spam box and delete them. But there are scam baiters out there, replying to the scammers, stringing them along, and some of them are very funny.

Fave highlights for me:

The Julia Ngume letters on 419baiter.com :
http://www.419baiter.com/games/juliangume.html
this thread comes with a warning, eg dont open it at work, as there are topless photos and some obscene language. But very funny- scambaiter poses as several characters, including Reverend Stu Pidass and his secretary Potty Latrine, who eventually murders the Rev and emails the scammers that she's coming over with his cash. The baiter actually convinces the scammers to pierce their nipples for them and send photos. Had me laughing out loud.

Scamorama:
http://www.scamorama.com/
This website was set up in 2002 and still updates every month with new scambaiting threads. Many faves here....baiters convincing scammers to post THEM cash, promising to arrive at airports then sending journos to take photos of scammers waiting at airports in South Africa, holding up placards for 'Rev Wally Tightnuts'...very funny


I do feel a little sorry for the scammers, even if they are managing $12 million a year. Some of them are very easily tricked and their grasp of english isnt too good. A lot of the scam baiters take full advantage of the pidgin english/cultural differences to insult the scammers in every way possible, leading to scammers sending threats such as 'I will use my African Juju to Kill you There in Your Country'and "I will set my village herbalist onto you'. I'm giggling, but sitting here in my airconditioned house with running water, a fully stocked kitchen, a car, mp3 player, dvd and tv....seems a bit mean to spend too much energy laughing at desperate folk who arent very bright.


But it's still a bit funny. And it's still worth a read occasionally. Dont think I'll ever become a scambaiter tho. Not unless i find someone scamming for electrolytes and dipping sauces.

Review: Jean Cocteau's La Belle et La Bete 1949

All this Twilighting has got me thinking...of other days, other Belles....so much complaining about bad role models, so many people saying that Bella and her Twilight romance is giving young women the wrong message....

The reason it's so powerful is that it's been ingrained in the hoooman psyche for centuries, n'est pas? Young beautiful woman, sighing, heavy with sensual, unfulfilled promise...the danger of deadly love, the threat of bestial violence, the tender, bestial lover...hmm, so very familiar.

Once upon a time, a beautiful young woman sacrificed her freedom so that her father would live, and in the world of the story this was of course the right thing to do. Then, in what may have been the first ever romanticised documentation of Stockholm Syndrome, she falls in love with her beast...so redeeming him and transforming him into a handsome prince....

My feminist leanings cannot blind me to the fact that Jean Cocteau's 1949 b&w "La Belle et La Bete is a masterpiece. An artist created the film's enchanted castle set, long before computer animated graphics came along and threatened to take the magic away. Surreal, beautiful, merci Cocteauxxxx you have redeemed the beast for me....

ps our copy is an old video from the 80s, with a very young David Stratton introducing and doing a bit of a spiel. Marvellous! He still had white hair and bad teeth :D

La Belle et La Bête (4/9)

...review above

this is for wilma. potted twilight, now that we're at the end of the road.

saved you all that reading and dvd renting :p

dear o dearie me

this, I think, was something of an attempt at 'notes on a scandal', period style. and while the setting and the clobber were thoroughly marvy, the story was awful. that is to say, it was badly told. and to make matters worse, it's evidently some oversexed man's idea of heaven. putrescent and patently male focus on the hot-housed festering lesbianism of your 1930's remote and religious boarding school ... complete with nude moonlit swims and stunning, highly risque school marms. natch. 2/10.

My fave for the morning courtesy of awkwardfamilyphotos.com

...as the note with this photy over at www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com reads,

It's hard to upstage the tree.

Rightio. I'll stop now.

awkwardfamilyphotos.com is hands down my fave site....

bless, oh, bless....

I searched the web for some Christmas Viggo....

....and this is the best i could come up with.

Merry Christmas Ten Forward...

a wander down memory lane

as you biscuits might be aware, smokey and I have spent a fair bit of time of late cavorting in amidst the uh-mericans over in that other place. smokey has changed his clobber once or twice, and might be a bit hard to find, such is the way of our inhouse PR dept. I'm still in the same underpants. anyhoo ... where was I?

I may be stating the bleeding obvious, and I'm not religious, but Christ....

There's no Christ in Christmas anymore, is there?
I needed a little Christmas ornament for work. Holy family/nativity theme, thinking maybe a snowglobe or somesuch, hardy enough for little kids to look at and handle whilst a group of em sing Silent Night.

I went to EVERY $2 Shop in the Nongys and the closest shopping complexes in Knox and Boronia. Targets, Kmarts galore. Lots of Santa, lots of snowmen, plenty of reindeer ears for the taking.
I found ducks with santa hats; I found Hippos sitting on stacks of gifts, but Baby Jesus just musnt be a big seller, because he was noooowhere to be seen.

Eventually I googled and it took me about 15 minutes to find a store about 20 minutes away that stocked little ceramic nativity ornaments, just right for putting on a tree or letting kids handle. So I drove there. Gracious me. Did you know that there are christian megastores out there? The place was full of holy sh*t, only a small portion of it Christmas related....

Feeling chatty, I told the chappie behind the counter about my encounters with festive zoo creatures in Santa hats, etc etc. he glared at me and said in a loud evangelical tone 'well, this is a Christian store. You wont find any of that here' (you could hear the italics). So I fled before he asked me to repent. But I got my Chrissy ornament. (And he got my money.) All is calm, all is bright :p

another year, but not just another codger flick

revoo

'another year' I generally steer well clear of 'autumn years' subject matter, because ... well, just because. and because I don't want to spend my limited ennertainment budget on watching codgers codgitate on what little remains of their lives. and I certainly don't want to a) watch, nor b) think about, codgers with their juices up. so you can imagine my reticence about picking this one up this past weekend. still, something about the cast, or the packarging, or some other small voicey thing pushed me past the "DON'T GO THERE" onboard alert system. and wasn't I glad that happened? yes I was :). a loverly mike leigh flick, yes, about codgers .. but these codgers are only gently so (mid 60's) and are ex-hippies so all's well. no codger sex, neither, thank the saints. a gorgeously wrought character piece well worth the trouble. 9/10. will stick a toob trailer atop this blurb.

everyone? anyone?

To the ex tenners

Birdie is at it again with his Xmas letters to BP on the 7pm project forum. If you are looking for a little bit of a laugh, check them out. http://community.ten.com.au/community/7pm_project/f/120/t/37743.aspx