Aloha from Fort Thoughtfulness
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In CLOUD NEWS there was pink and blue and a mashed potato ripple feather effect. Table Cape was in fine form, squaring off with Bass Straight like a rock locomotive to tranquility.
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MY NEWS, LIKE ACTUAL THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN HAPPENING OR INFORMATION I WAS LIKELY TO WANT TO CONVEY AT SOME POINT BETWEEN BREAKFAST AND THE BARKING DOG
Semi-urgently, I wanted to point out that this will be the last email with 'The Bedroom Philosopher' in the 'From'. From now on it will be Justin Heazlewood as I would like to recast this missive under my own name. Perhaps mention this to your address books so that it doesn't startle you.
- Last year I gave a witness statement to the Royal Commission into Victoria's Mental Health System. I went to town on it. It felt pretty special to have somewhere official to park my story. I know there are a lot of royal commissions these days - I mean - the royal commission into milk bars! (Sure - a lot of milk bars did disappear in the 2000s but did it really require all of those resources!? Any ageing hipster could have told you it was harder to buy warheads and frosty boy thickshakes.). The amazing thing about this one is that rather than retweak a broken system (which usually happens), they are going to tear the whole thing down and start again!
I was in Melbourne to do a reading at the launch last Thursday. It got cancelled the night before because of an outbreak and I ended up performing to a crowd of 4 people while it was being filmed for later. Fortunately, I assured everyone that I thrive under those conditions.
- I contributed to what is one of my favourite pieces of radio. The latest episode of the All In Your Mind podcast on RN. (Link below). You can also learn a fair bit about the royal commission from it.
- I got a couple of arts grants to turn Get Up Mum into a one man show. So, that's what I've been doing. It's good. I may have spent most of the money on tape decks (since you have to drop a couple of grand just to enter the 'tape playing' market these days - 80% of boomboxes online are working except for the tape part. I bought 'Brothers In Arms' by Dire Straits which was number one in Australia for like 35 weeks! Money For Nothing features the 'non radio edit' where he drops the F-Bomb (no, the other F-Bomb) three times in 30 seconds, so I am thinking of finding someone who can graft the cancel button from my toaster onto my tape deck.
- Oh, congratulations to Laura Jean McKay for winning the Victorian Literary Prize! She is a friend who performed a bizarre poem at The Bedroom Philosopher's High School Assembly in 2011. Her book is called 'The Animals In That Country' and is about a virus that lets people hear what animals are thinking. It's Harry's Practice meets last year!
Srsly tho, this is a HUGE moment for writers of my Voiceworks generation. I'm awestruck.
- Congrats to my mate Will of Twinkle Digitz who had a baby called Sylvie. It got me thinking perhaps I should have taken that girl up on the offer to have my baby, when I ran out into the audience at Marion Bay Falls Festival in 2005. Infamously, my reply was "what's your blood type?"
- I started up a FB account under my own name too - so you can peruse that.
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Me. Looking real good me.
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JUSTIN'S SUPER FUN MOVIE AND TV RECOMMENDATIONS
- First Cow - Men make biscuits in the 1800s.
- Yes God, Yes - 90s Christian camp comedy (as in set at a camp).
- Shadow In The Cloud - NZ feminist action thing featuring everyone's favourite Grace Moretz (Chloe), in her most feisty role since Kaylie Hooper on 30 Rock.
- Wheelman - Super cool car chases in the tradition of Drive.
- Ammonite - Erotic paleontologist Kate Winslet vehicle.
- Portrait of a Lady on Fire - The opposite of "she's no oil painting."
- Paper Moon - It's from 1973 and it's still in black and white. Tatum O'neal won the Oscar for Best Actress at age 10! (Considered one of the great child acting performances alongside the boy in Careful He Might Hear You).
- Carey Mulligan in anything.
- Babyteeth - Oz indie film about edgy girl with cancer.
- A Boy Called Sailboat - My fave indie film from last year or the year before..
- Terminator 3.
- All Claire Danes Movies.
- NOT True Lies or Last Action Hero
- Hon. Mention goes to Palm Springs (Groundhog Day tribute). Also, I'm not afraid to admit I've been a bit in love with Cristin Milioti since she was in the first episode of Modern Love - a TV Show which I will never forgive for not having Bowie as its theme.
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DOCOS
There are cool music ones on Bros, ZZ Top and Slim Dusty. I loved the recent Bee Gees one. They had six consecutive US No. 1 singles (only rivalled by John Lennon & Paul McCartney).
TEEVEE
I might only recommend one because 'Tales From The Loop' seems to have passed by on the sly last year, but I really dug it. I think Glow was cancelled, so that would explain my absence of communication for the past six months. I've just been too sad. Fortunately, Alison Brie seems to be in every second indie movie these days. Good on you Alison Brie, that's some mighty fine acting right there. She is in a pretty oddbod one called Horse Girl. (It contains trigger warnings if you work in a fabric store and have anxiety dreams about coming to work naked.)
Oh, movie recommendation - Sally Field in NO wait, I mean Sally Hawkins. I have a problem there which is the worst name switcheroo since calling Jon Spencer Jon Butler (Don't get me started on the Missy Higgins / Elliot fiasco of 2008.)
Sally, Hawkins in 'Eternal Beauty.' In it, she portrays a woman with schizophrenia. She does it very well.
If I can get political for a moment - I don't think many people were up in arms about an actor without that particular illness portraying it on screen. Compared to the autism character in Sia's 'Music' which is something everyone is ready to tear her to shreds over. Autism and schizophrenia both effect people to the same ratio - 1 in 100. There is a bit of difference in the media coverage of the two conditions, in that one gets any.
Personally, I think people should avoid applying hard and fast blanket rules to things, especially when they pertain to the artistic process and an audiences relationship with a piece of work. There are just so many variables and each case / work / example is so different. Sia did go to great lengths to cast an actor with autism but they were finding the filming process too stressful. It's not duck hunting season for character assassination people. Go eat a sandwich and finish your PHD LOUISE!
ps Cats would have been much better if real cats had the chance to represent themselves. Milo & Otis meets Rocky Horror anyone?
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I watched the Never Ending Story
2!
For a long time all it had ever been was a Jimeoin joke.
(The joke goes, have you heard they're making a movie - The Never Ending Story.............................................part 2!)
Try telling that in an accent other than Irish and see where it gets you. Also, try telling it in a year that isn't 1994.
Anyway, my movie review is................for a long time I thought George Miller of the Mad Max films was directing it, which confused me. Why was it so bad then...but no, there's actually a George T Miller, so don't get conned like I did.
Basically you're watching this just hoping it will magically teeter into the 'so bad it's good' category. Admittedly, as I am such an adept and astute indie movie watcher / artisan / snob - it has been many moons since I've willingly watched something with an aggregregate percentage rating of less than 65% (I'm looking at you Drop Dead Fred).
My favourite part of this movie was the black neon hand towards the start, in the establishing shot of the evil castle. I can't BELIEVE they've recast atreyu. He is very much the ALDI of atreyu's. And even Falcor seems as if he has experienced and recovered from a substantial emotional trauma (or at least has a permanent head cold.) I really missed his out of context maniacal laughing featured towards the end of the first film.
Perhaps Never Ending Story is being very meta and this film is a tribute to 'The Nothing' suggesting that the metaphysical destructive force came and wiped out the plot and special effects budget?
Nevertheless, notwithstanding, and be that as it may, I do not recommend watching this unless you are at a significant loss in your personal life of what to do and with whom to do it. Fortunately, the story is so ridiculous (it even gets it's own 'Jar Jar Binks' figure of a big dumb parrot thing which looks like a Skeksis leftover from the Dark Crystal puppets bin) that none of it stays with you and it is this reviewers professional opinion that Never Ending Story 2 does live up to the paradoxical equation suggested in its title, and cannot be held onto by the human mind for longer than a few minutes before it does, indeed, mercifully, END.
You would be better off spending 20 minutes watching a walk-thru of a typing strategy adventure game on the Amstrad CPC 464. Or - go out on a date with someone, for the love of god. This was supposed to be OUR Saturday night.
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