The Jamjar

Movie: Bourne Ultimatum

Seeing no one else seems to have a Happy Place they want to talk to me about - I'll post about a movie - just for a change!

Jason Bourne is an awesome character. He rocks: he's like MacGyver on crack cocaine. He's "Matt Damon" (c'mon.. everybody now.. you know how to say it!)

He's getting on he's 37 years old - he's been ducking and diving for 3 years. Those of you in this time of life know that while you're still wonderfully (hot) young men, sometimes things ache a bit more than they used to a few years ago (not always the good kind of ache either) and joints are starting to be a little less fluid, and you might've caught yourself making that grunt/groan noise when you get up or get down, so watching Jason Bourne go up against younger "assets" you know he's having to work extra hard just to survive - and a lot of the time he's only breaking even.

This movie has gritty, fast-paced action sequences, and hub-caps-in-your-face car chase choreography. I loved that no one had to bang on and on about stuff we already know because the actors had communicated those thoughts and emotions to us by way of their craft. What a novel concept. We didn't need exposition exposition after exposition to know what was going on and they didn't give it to us so Yay!

Jason Bourne is determined. He's very smart - well he's at least as smart as we are watching him, which make us all smarter than the CIA who are chasing him - they're not a step behind, they're like 9 hours and 2 countries behind. But that's okay, cos nothing is going to stop Mr Bourne from getting all the pieces to the puzzle of his identity - he's about as close to indestructible as you can get.

This final installment is a good end (if slightly weaker than the previous two) to this excellent character and storyline. Nice artwork in the credits, too.

Note to Movie-makers: Look - there is no point to hand held NYPD-Bluesque jiggly camera movement anymore. Just.Stop. It was okay when I was younger (2 years ago) when it didn't cause a physical reaction but now I get car sick in a cinema with all your outdated, pointless "action" movies so just.. quit it, ok? I shouldn't need to chow down on SeaLegs just to watch a movie.

Happy Place

Do you have a happy place? An imaginary place you go to when you are in long, boring meetings, or when you're waiting for a piece of software to do its thing, or when traffic lights take ages to change to green, or when you're waiting for a tram or in a queue or on hold?

Tell me about your happy place.

Lunar Eclipse

TV: Californication

Bor. Ring.

Monday: before and after

Try this for a good not-quite-summer-but-too-warm-for-winter but we-really-feel-like-a three-cheeses kind of meal. A transitional meal that sits on the border between hearty winter food and light summer meals. We took our raviolli stuffed with sundried tomatoes and ricotta and heated it with our friends: saute'd spanish onions, garlic and cherry tomatoes. Tossed through a salad of mixed salad greens just before serving, topped with big fat green olives, crumbled Danish (screw the food-miles it's freaking amazing) fetta and ripped cherry bocconcini, served with a crisp chardonnay and soft warm garlic bread.

Dude, come over for dinner - we know how to do it!

Band: Subnormal

I haven't seen much in the way of live music since coming to Melbourne, so was pleased to go to Public Bar in North Melbourne last night to see Subnormal. I thought they were really good, and I enjoyed their set. I'd definitely go and see them again.

During the evening, I composed a kick-ass blog post about the evening - but then I drank too much I have forgotten all the words and have a headache instead.

Subnormal's drummer reads The Jamjar, and had mentioned the gig. I found him afterwards and said hi. He introduced me to a couple of his friends and I hung out with them. Which, apart from being fun, also saved me from having to deal with the European Guy I'd met while buying a beer.

European Guy: You're beautiful.
Me: *eyebrows* me?
European Guy: Yes, you're beautiful.
Me: ah, thank you.
European Guy: You look beautiful in red.
Me: *nodding* red'll do that for a girl
European Guy: Ooo you're really beautiful *wrapping his arms around me and squeezing me close*
Me: *peeling him off me* thanks but no touching, buddy.
European Guy: *taking my hand and kissing it* ooo but you're so beautiful
Me: yeh so you said *taking my hand back* but no touching.
European Guy: you should do something about your weight
Me: *eyebrows* really?
European Guy: yes, you should do something about it
Me: do something like.. put more weight on?
European Guy: no no no you should start running or something.
Me: Well, I think that's such a good suggestion, I think I'll start right now *leaves*

The Builders

Nod to Teh Fox for this vid.

Sunrise Balloons

Movie: The Jammed

Have you heard about this movie? The Jammed is a movie made in Melbourne, about the human trafficking/illegal prostitution here in Australia. The subject was brought to the attention of the writer/director Dee McLachlan by way of a small newspaper article a few years ago. This is not a documentary, though the screenplay is based on court transcripts, but a drama and as such, has a worrying realness to it. Some people are saying it's the "Movie of the Year" I don't know that I'd go that far, but it is good, and well worth seeing.

This movie is on very limited release at the Nova on Lygon Street, Melbourne. Go see it if you are able - with a bit of luck it will get wider distribution.

The Age talks to Dee McLachlan

The Jammed review on Schembri's Age blog.

PS: The Jammed starred our Apartment! I was sitting there thinking "Hey, those letter boxes and foyer looks like *our* letter boxes and foyer" when Fox grabbed my arm and said "That's our place!!" and she was right! The scenes early in the movie of the "Sydney" apartment are, in fact, in our apartment and building here in Melbourne. That was our foyer, our letterboxes, the apartment Crystal is locked in is a mirror image of our own. Tom's (the boyfriend) apartment (a bit later in the movie) is another place in our building. Famous!

Wednesday Balloon

Unrelated Link: Anatomy of a global credit crisis

Related Link: Gumdrops

Lunk

Are you a homesick kiwi living in Aussie? You might like to try your luck at winning some tickets home in November.

Home Sweet As

Gnocchi

Process Enacted: by Jordan C Greenhalgh

Sambuca

Twitter Meet

God, I am the *worst* mingler in the world. If I go anywhere with people I know, that's exactly who I mingle with. In fact, when I do that I'm sure it's not even called 'mingling' anymore but 'hiding' or 'snobbing' or 'propping up the bar' or something. The only time I actually mingle is when I'm forced to by the fact I arrived alone and don't know anyone.

I don't have much to report about the Melbourne Twitter meet-up at Horse Bazaar this evening - cept everyone did a damn better job at mingling than I did. Good beer, good pizza (I was jolly ready for it when it arrived) and great company even if it's the same company that puts up with me day in and day out.

Fox won a prize for the most creative tweet using the word "air" and I had a bushel of beer. mmmbeer.

Thursdays are the second best days of the week though I'm beginning to worry about Tuesdays - has anyone else noticed they've been missing three weeks in a row now? Maybe they've just gone up to the ski slopes.

PS: Keith (name tag reading) brought his iPhone along and offered it for actual fondling. It's so thin! and teh beautiful.

Breakfast Balloons

Lemony Goodness

MIFF*

The Hottest State (USA) - Ethan Hawke adapted his own novel for the screen, then directed and starred in it. Busy boy! I liked this movie mostly because William, our young man finding heartbreak for the first time, was so damned likeable (unless you were the woman sitting behind me at the cinema who found him annoying and ruined the movie for her - takes all sorts). We all have the same stories in life, and this is one we all go through once - our first love and consequently (for most of us) our first heartbreak. It's the real rite of passage - and timed in this case with a 21st birthday - to deciding how you cope with the bumpy road of life.

Boss of it All (Denmark) - this movie starts off with the film-maker narrating the introduction to his film. He notes that you can see his reflection in the building he is filming and this, he says, is the most reflection this movie will require. He is quite correct. This film existed for exactly as long as it took for me to watch it. It didn't leave any questions in my mind nor did it change my life or make me think. What it did do was make me laugh. It was funny and clever. The characters are all wonderful, nicely rounded and quite credible. Boss of it All didn't seem to misplace any humour in translation.

Meet the Armstrongs (UK) - The blurb for this movie included the quote “It’s as if the producers went looking for a real-life David Brent [The Office] and found one with an evil sister.” While Ann Armstrong isn't quite "evil sister" material she is definitely a very interesting character. She and her husband John own and operate Britain's third largest double glazing company U-Fit. They let the documentary camera crews into their lives to film them, their business and their employees, and they (the Armstrongs) loved every minute of it.

This fly-on-the-wall doco is *awesome*. You can't make this kind of stuff up and lord only knows you can't write and deliver the kind of lines these two come out with.

"I think that I'm going to have to put my foot down with a bit of a firm hand."

Ann (on having to talk to the staff about eating at their desks)

"You're trying to put the tyre on the rim, and we haven't even got the spokes in yet. If we're going to stop by the roadside and we're going to be putting a wheel back on, we might as well get on a completely different road and go for it. What I'm saying, is before you go down that road, you've got to make sure the vehicle's got oil and water in, right?"

John (on why they don't need to hire a consultant to grow their business)

Yella (Germany) - This is the story of a young woman who accepts a job offer in a larger city, with plans of escaping her old life in small town Germany. I don't even know how to say what I want to say about this film - or maybe it's because I need to rub my fingertips against each other while I emphasise the delicacy, the subtlety of the story and you can't see me doing that. This movie is so perfectly balanced, to talk about it might upset it's feng shui so let's just go with suggesting you see it if you get the chance.

(that actually reminds me that while coming out of a movie earlier in the week, I heard a man say to his companion that he thought Yella was the worst movie he'd ever seen in.his.life. - I can understand that too :)

Interview (USA/the Netherlands) - I didn't believe these characters. I was going to suggest that the problem for me with this film was that time moved too quickly to set up the bond between Pierre (Steve Buscumi) and Katya (Sienna Miller) but on reflection, their characters were both excellent manipulators and their evening together was great sport for the pair of them. In that light, I feel slightly better about the movie. It did seem a bit superficial at times though, and I do think it would have been better with a tighter script - it just seemed to cover too much ground too quickly (there I go again). Anyway, you go see it, tell me what you think. One thing's for certain, Ms Katya's loft is to.die.for.

Mister Lonely (from a bunch of places) - A Michael Jackson impersonator in Paris meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. She invites him to travel with her to visit with her husband, Charlie Chaplin and their daughter, Shirley Temple. They all live with other impersonators at a commune in the Highlands. Meanwhile, nuns are jumping out of planes without parachutes over Africa. Sounds strange? Well that's cos it is - strange and weird and nonsensical and fun and sad and did I mention weird?

*Melbourne International Film Festival

Criminology - Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne

Criminology is a play based on the real-life murder of a young man in Canberra. The case is well known in Australia due in part to the light sentence handed down to the young woman who killed him; and to the fact her friends knew of her plans but failed to act to stop her. She was charged with manslaughter and served 4 of her 10 years before being released with her prison-acquired degree in criminology.

So that was the basis of the play - well, up to the murder, anyway. Criminology itself was a binge and purge of simulated sex, drug use and regurgitation that muddled it's way through psychotic episodes to the final dinner party, drugging and murder of the boyfriend.

I'm not quite sure exactly why I didn't like it: I wasn't even invested enough to hate it. I felt sick that somewhere a family was losing/had lost their son, but that was more about the facts of the matter and less about the communication from the characters. There wasn't an ounce of compassion throughout the entire play from a cast of thoroughly unlikeable characters which was probably the entire point.

The play had plenty of simulated sex (simulated masturbation, simulated digital penetration, simulated oral sex) and when is that never a good thing? Well, ok: but pretty sure I might have been a tad more "engaged" if it had been *that* kind of show.

Meanwhile, the actors are allowed to smoke on stage (their place of work) in an enclosed theatre (not unlike a bar or a pub) full of people who aren't permitted to break the new smoking laws with such wild abandon, but they're not (the actors, that is) allowed to *actually* have sex on stage (nor is the audience: we're not allowed on the stage). And what the hell is it that they smoke? cos it stinks worse than any cigarette I've ever passively inhaled.

This goes someway to indicate where my mind was wandering during Criminology while I was trying to ward off a numb bum and a slumbering foot.

I overheard one rather elderly woman on her way out of the theatre "I think there will be some young men who were rather turned on by that. I'm still quite shell-shocked though."

Fox has some great links over at papermilk

Hairy Canary, Little Collins Street, Melbourne

Unfortunately, third time wasn't the charm for me and the Hairy Canary. I've visited this busy little eatery three times now and can only praise the food and service on my second visit. If only I had not returned tonight, I might just be writing about their perfect gnocchi and cheerful service, but alas - I did eat there tonight and had to suffer through a increasingly tipsy waitress who didn't do a very good job of looking after us - or more to the point: me.

Apparently, as I have now learned, hearing "There is a _mess_ at the _bar_" is waiting staff talk for "Free shots, hurry up" and that's just what was going on for the staff at Hairy Canary this chilly night in Melbourne. Now I am not one to blame people for drinking at work - Lord only knows there have been times in my life when I would have given a kidney to get a drink to make it through my day - but I can't remember seeing such drinking behaviour so visible to customers and at the expense of service. When a customer (me) has to work as hard as I did to get my waitress's attention to order a glass of wine to only end up having to ask another waitress if that was my wine I spotted sitting on the bar waiting to be served because it was taking so long to get to me; when our table was not even offered let alone presented with drinking water; when we got to watch our waitress bent over the adjacent table (butt facing us) with a customer's hand on her hip, I start to get miffy.

I expect a certain level of attentiveness in a restaurant, I don't expect to be spoon fed, but it is nice when your waitress remembers your order (we almost took bets she'd cock it up but she came back to double-check so all bets were off) keeps an eye out for empty wine glasses and leaves a menu long enough to actually view the dessert list - I do not expect to have to get up from my table to ask someone at the bar for sugar for my coffee to be teased by two of the bar staff "No! you may not have sugar!" (I was grumpy by this stage)

But what about the food Michelle? I ordered the gnocchi - having had this dish a few weeks earlier and declaring the Hairy Canary's gnocchi to be the best in all the land, I was rather disappointed in this week's effort. Although it was still good, it lacked the subtle brilliance of the meal of a few weeks ago. It was heavy with tomato and olive and some of the gnocchi seemed over-cooked. The espresso I had to finish my meal had nice smooth corners though, and I enjoyed it very much.

I am less than pleased with the Hairy Canary this evening, and would recommend it to people only if they understand that the quality of the meals is inconsistent, the service is borders on mediocre at best and was poor this evening even before the waitress got wobbly from all the shots at the bar.

On the plus side, The Hairy Canary is often open when a lot of other places are shut, and considering that they have always managed to find us a table, that's pretty good going.

Tom Phat, Sydney Road, Melbourne

It started raining as I got out of my taxi on Sydney Road. Saturday was cold and it felt like snow in the air. Tom Phat's bright pink sign was a welcome sight.

The place looked busy and full, and as usual, I didn't have a booking. This is a really bad idea in any city for a meal on Saturday night, but the gracious hostess suggested that if I didn't mind waiting, she would find a table as soon as she could. I settled into the window seat, against the soft cushions and sipped red wine and watched the rain fall on the street outside. It was very relaxing and warm and I felt extremely comfortable.

I was waiting for Eroica and her friend Frances, and not long after they arrived, our hostess was able to seat us which was wonderful. All the dishes sounded wonderful but we were all taken by the thought of silken tofu with beans and chilli. The meal was perfectly flavoured, with enough to warm the mouth but not so much my eyes knew about it. Silken tofu is really the bees knees and if you get a chance to order it, do so - it really is a lovely texture.

Our waiter was friendly and helpful and like Eroica and Frances, from Christchurch, New Zealand. How he picked up on our subtle accents I'll never know but we had a bit of a kiwi bonding session between our main and dessert dishes. I don't usually order dessert, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity of tapioca - it's been so many years since I tried it and this version had been made with coconut milk and served cold. I liked it very much.

I'm quite happy to take the trek from Collingwood over to Sydney Road to eat at Tom Phat's anytime. It's cosy, friendly and the food is great.

Cavallero Cafe, Smith Street, Collingwood

Cavallero on Smith Street in Collingwood for breakfast on a Saturday (mid/late) morning is a good idea if you like organic oats with stewed fruit, and some of the best freshly squeezed orange-juice in town, but not if you're in a hurry, or if you need a cosy, comfortable, quiet start to your day.

The service is unpredictable (20mins for toast and no apology for the delay (I think they actually *forgot* to place the order with the kitchen)) and the staff a bit too important to engage eye contact while taking your money. It can get a bit pricey too - at $6 for two slices of toast, it's just as well it's bloody nice jam!

The space is nicely arranged though, with several different areas depending on if you're in the mood for a booth, the bar, or a shared large table. A fair-enough start to your weekend, but Cavallero won't end up being your favourite breaky spot.

MIFF: The Hottest State

Ethan Hawke is in town. He's here to talk about his film, The Hottest State. He wrote the novel, adapted it for screen, directed and starred in this movie. No wonder he looked a little tired.

While The Hottest State is a work of fiction, it can't help but ring with autobiographical bells

*right-after-movie brain dump*
right of passage
first love/broken heart
when does "hanging on" turns into obsession and when does it start to become "letting go"
your heart was broken long before I came along
clinging to the passion/lust of first love
thinking he'll never survive it
realising he didn't die, realising he is a man, responsible for himself
we all break hearts and have ours broken "you'll be amazed at home many times you will fall in love"
we live to break and be broken
are the endless black lows of rejection worth the chest bursting bliss of being loved?
discuss
whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, or just really bent out of shape and crippled?
especially if you're a little bird
broken bird
or a 20 year old actor with weird hair

yer shit michelle you couldn't articulate what you're thinking (let alone review a movie) if your life depended on it

Melbourne International Film Festival but all her friends just call her MIFF.

***editor's (that's me, michelle) note***

I was writing this, then the phone rang from New Zealand so I talked for a while and then the kids (damn roommates and their jumpy games) came home and jumped on my bed and lounged about and well OK it was really nice but now they've gone and i'm gonna go brush my teeth and go to bed (well in truth i've been *on* the bed the entire time while those kids were jumping on it) and try (please God, I know I don't believe in you but please PLEASE let me sleep tonight - the bags under my eyes are turning into rubbish sacks - I'll do anything for sleep... but I won't do that .. actually I will do that but I still can't sleep)

I'll fix this post up tomorrow.. night.. or Saturday.. we have another movie tomorrow.. another MIFF.. um.. it's that one about the guy who hires the other guy to pretend to be the CEO of his IT company.. bit like Remington Steele but with computers.. or something. I might write about that, or not.. you'll have to stay tuned! (I am so full of egg plant I feel like a gog - you know? full as a goog?(you know.. like boog.. in boogie board) oh wait.. that might just be me again)

Dear God, me again - you know I don't believe in you but thanks for today, it was miles better inside my head than the mess it has been for weeks. I appreciate that.

PS: I didn't brush my teeth. Goodnight Melbourne.

PPS: who do these bikes belong to?