The Avengers - A Review

Hello Dear Reader!

I know that this one is WAY overdue, but I currently don't have a PC, so bear with me. I'm also using my IPad, which seems to make writing a grammatically correct blog impossible. Not everyone is American, Mr. WhoeverRunsAppleNow. The world does not revolve around you!

The Avengers is the flick I have been waiting for since Iron Man (that and Deadpool - but that seems to have been put on the backburner...again). All the subtle hints sprinkled through The Hulk, Thor and Captain America have seriously been doing my head in - and when it was announced that Joss Whedon had signed on to write and direct, bricks were shat. But enough about that, on to my opinion! Cos that's the most important thing here. 


Now, those of you that know me (and I'm assuming that it is the vast majority of you), know that I am a huge comic book fan. That being said, I have to say, I LOVED this film. It was written by someone that is obviously a fan, very witty, well shot, and engaging. Big budget comic book/franchise adaptions can be really disappointing (fuck you Michael Bay), and to be quite honest, this is probably the first that I have been genuinely impressed with since the original Batman. 


The way that Whedon brought the characters together as a unit is fantastic - the first chunk of the movie explores what would happen when 7 individuals huge egos (and the odd super power) are thrown together and expected to work as a team. It involves a lot of bickering, power struggles, punching and hilarity. Then comes the pivotal moment when one of their own is lost (no spoilers), and they all band together to save the world (or New York...whatever). 


It's pretty predictable plot wise, but with these kinds of movies, simple is always best. It was a little disappointing that they were unable to bring Edward Norton back on as The Hulk, but they definitely made the right casting choice with Mark Ruffalo. He really NAILS Bruce Banner - playing him with the right amount of nervous energy, anxiety and underlying anger. Hopefully he stays on for the next flick, because he was fucking brilliant. 


As he was really the only casting change, there's not really any point in my harping on about the rest of them. Scarlet Johansson is hot, so is Chris Hemsworth. Robert Downey Jnr is perfectly arrogant, and Chris Evans is confused. They're all just as good as they were in their previous films. The only other thing I found annoying was that there are a few shots in the film that are obviously made for 3D, so if you're watching it normally, every now and then something will flash up screaming I'M A 3D SCENE! Other than that, I loved every second, and would gladly go and see it again (this time in 3D). Which brings me to my final question: 


WHY ARE STUDIOS STILL GIVING MONEY TO MICHAEL BAY?! GIVE IT TO JOSS WHEDON FOR FUCKS SAKE! 


4.5 Stars! Stop reading and go see it!

The Hunger Games: A Review

As the American Summer draws closer, we begin to enter what, in the "biz", is known as BLOCKBUSTER SEASON!

Well, probably not - but it sounds exciting.

Traditionally, the most anticipated films are scheduled for release in the American Spring and Summer - as obviously the entire world revolves around the US. I personally like that they all come out in the Australian Winter, because in all honesty, it's fucking hot 12 months a year where I live.

That being said, I am assuming that my blogs will become more frequent now that Blockbuster Season is almost upon us...depending on finances. UNLESS PEOPLE WANT TO PAY ME TO REVIEW *wink wink*

Anyway, on with the show.

The Hunger Games, based on a book trilogy of the same name (which I have not read - I find it best to see these movies before I read the books, that way I'm not disappointed and cranky when I see the film), is set in what I can only assume is some sort of post-apocalyptic society that consists of 12 poorer "Districts" and the uber-rich Capitol. Every year, a male and female are chosen to represent each District in a televised battle to the death to appease...something. I couldn't quite work it out, and didn't want to cheat and use Wikipedia. It's some form of ritualistic sacrifice from what I could gather. Anyway, main characters are chosen, a full hour is used on "Character Development", battle begins, shit gets real...fin. That's it in a nutshell.

Jennifer Lawrence gives an OK performance as protagonist Katniss Everdeen (last seen as Raven/Mystique in X-Men: First Class). She at least speaks clearly and doesn't assume that mumbling, crossing her eyes, biting her lip and being pretty are enough to carry her through this film. There are a few really good moments where she really hits her stride and is believable, but there are also many where she seems wooden and bored. The kid that played Bucky in Kicking and Screaming also puts in a solid performance, as well as Lenny Kravitz, Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks. It was a pretty movie to watch - a lot of thought obviously went into the Capitol, battlefield etc. However, the fight scenes, oh my god! The fight scenes! This is, I assume, a fairly violent and at times graphic book aimed at young adults. I understand that it is not always young adults that read these - especially now that Raging Shit Twilight has taken off, but don't sacrifice a key part of the story for a PG-13 rating and a few extra tickets! The fight scenes were TERRIBLE. Very shaky, constantly out of focus and always cutting around the place - I found it confusing, annoying and difficult to watch. The only other thing I found irritating is that it is a long film (over 2 hours) and there is still not enough character development for someone that is unaware of the book series.

At the end of the day, the film is OK. Not above average, but certainly not below. The cast put in solid performances, the story is written well enough that I could understand the key elements, and aside from the fight scenes, is shot pretty well. I'm definitely going to read the books at the very least.

It's a good warm up for what is to come this season anyway! 2.5 stars

Busby Marou Gig: An Objective Review

To be honest, when my lovely friend Gayle asked me to join her and her fiance at the Busby Marou gig, I had no idea who/what she was talking about. Probably because I'm not cool enough. Anyway, as it was Friday night and I'm seldom invited out, I jumped at the chance.

Unfortunately, the gig was at the Andergrove Tavern. 

I haven't been to the Tavern in about 10 years, mainly because it's a dank. Not a lovable dank, but an actual dank. It makes my skin crawl, is dirty and generally populated by douche bags/stupid bitches - all of whom are drunk and speaking ridiculously loud and high pitched. Ugh. 

Anyway, the gig was SHIT. And I'm not just saying that because I don't really know who Busby Marou are. Really. The venue? Shit. The people? Shit. The sound/acoustics? Shit. The bands? SHIT!

Seriously. We stood there for 2.5 hours and didn't even notice when the back up bands left the stage. That's how bad they were. It was 2+ hours of University brand hipster music. 

I can't go on with this. It was terrible. Mackay - STOP HAVING GIGS AT THE GROVE! Jeez. 

1 rubber chicken - and that's being generous.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: A Review

I'll begin by saying that I haven't read the "Millennium Series", nor have I seen the Scandinavian film adaptions. The only thing I know is that this film is the lovechild of uber-director David Fincher (of Fight Club and Seven fame) and Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List), and stars Mr. 007 himself, Daniel Craig. Oh! The sound track is by Trent Reznor too. So yeah, I was expecting a lot.

We open with what is essentially a Nine Inch Nails film clip set to a hideously remixed "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin - complete with over-dubbed vocals by that chick from The Knife. 

I. Hated. It. 

Probably because Trent Reznor sodomised one of my favourite songs...publicly. I found myself drifting off to that South Park episode where Steven Spielberg and George Lucas rape Indiana Jones. That being said, the soundtrack does set the tone of the film very well. It's all dark, brooding, and angry and really puts you in that "I hate all the things" mind frame. Score 1 to YOU Mr Reznor. 

ANYWAY - let's move on to the actual film. 

From what Wikipedia tells me (remember, I haven't read the books or seen the other movies), the American film adaption pretty much follows the Scandinavian one aside from 1 key plot point - which I won't reveal as it will completely fuck everything for you. It opens with lead character Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) losing a libel case against some big wig, which costs him his life savings. We also find out that he is banging his married co-editor, Erika Berger (Robin Wright). Presumably at the same time as the trial, a Lawyer is performing a background check on Blomkvist for his boss, and retired CEO of Vagner Industries, Henrik Vagner (Christopher Plummer). Enter Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), hacker extraordinairre, sufferer of all kinds of abuse, and really REALLY pissed off chick. It's at this point that we are treated to some back-ground information on Lisbeth - including not one, but TWO fairly graphic rape scenes. One of which involves a gigantic metal penis and a tattoo gun...Imaginations, do your worst! Anyway, Blomkvist goes off to Vagner's island to research the 40 year old disappearance/murder of Vagner's grand daughter, decides he needs a "research assistant", teams up with Salander, and BAM! We have the rest of the movie. 

Rooney Mara is the definite stand out of the film, even surrounded by heavyweights like Daniel Craig, Stellan Skarsgaard and Christopher Plummer. She really throws herself into the role, and plays Lisbeth with the perfect mix of awkardness, angst, frailty and this brilliant underlying rage that just bubbles away under the surface. It's awesome to watch.  Being a Fincher film, it's also beautifully shot, and really uses the Sweedish landscape to his advantage. The dulling down of colour also provides the right amount of "grittiness" needed as you're dragged through the murkiness of what is essentially a really nasty family history involving Nazis, lies and copious amounts of sex. 

On the negative side, I found the blatant product placement really annoying. In a movie that has had most of the colour removed from the footage (there's a lot of blacks, greys, bleak landscapes and night time shooting), every now and then a BRIGHT FUCKING RED coke can or happy meal box will magically appear and really offend your delicate eye holes. Reznor also gets a few really good plugs in here and there too...

The accents are also a little irritating - I personally think that in a foreign set film, either everyone does the accent or no-one at all. You have Mara, Plummer and Skarsgaard using a Scandinavian type accent, yet Daniel Craig doesn't even bother. Maybe he felt that he already has a foreign accent in America's eyes, so no effort on his part was necessary. That, or his attempt at the accent was so incredibly shit that the directors decided to scrap it entirely.

The only other gripe I had was that sometimes the film felt a little clunky. While I realise that sex and abuse were major themes in the movie, it felt that every now and then a sex scene was thrown in to make sure that everyone was still paying attention. For example, when you are being introduced to Mara's character, there is a scene in a club where she hooks up with a chick, shoves her hand up her skirt and gets her angry girl lover on. I get that the character is bi-sexual, but I really didn't think that part of the movie was all that necessary. It was more like the director/screenwriter was screaming "HEY GUYS! THIS ONE'S FOR YOU LOL" at the audience.

All that aside, the performances were good - in Rooney Mara's case, fantastic. The dialogue was good. It was beautifully shot. It's definitely worth a peek, but is definitely not going to be the best to come from 2012. 

I'ma give it 3.5 rubber chickens. 

Someone called me a 'vapid cunt' today, and I said "The sky's blue bitch, I'm busy"

No-one called me a 'vapid cunt' today, but catchy title yes? I thought so.

Recently, I have been receiving increasingly threatening phone calls - always from a blocked number. It's the usual lame stuff: "You're a slut", "I'm going to kill you", "Watch your back", "I'm watching you" etc etc. Sure, it pissed me off, and is more than likely work related, but I didn't think too much of it the first couple of times they called. There isn't really a pattern to the phone calls, and they were usually after work hours or on a Friday/Saturday night, so I figured that it was probably some idiot randomly dialling phone numbers. But it just kept happening, always the same person doing the same dodgy accent, and always after significant events in a certain tenant's rental history. Oh yeah, did I mention I'm a Property Manager? I probably should have, cos that's pretty important for my little tale. My point is, I have a pretty good idea of whom is making these calls, but alas, I couldn't prove it at that point in time. Apparently the police and phone company couldn't do anything as a) the phone number is private and b) they are only calling once or twice a month, which apparently isn't frequent enough for the phone company/police to issue a cease and desist notice.

Yesterday, at 11.31am I received yet ANOTHER call, but this time Governor Fuckhead (that's what I am calling them - deal with it) forgot to block their number.

"Huzzah!" I thought. "You're fucked now! Prepare to feel my wrath mother fucker!" I thought, and off I toddled to the Police Station to fuck Governor Fuckhead in the arse with a night-stick.

Imagine my surprise when I presented the Officer with said phone number and was all "Hello Ms Police-man, here is the phone number of the person that has been calling and threatening me, please go do your job now" and was told that "they haven't committed an offense yet".

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?! I'm no police officer, but I have watched a shit load of TV and far, far too many movies, which obviously makes me an expert. I really thought that constantly threatening someone's life was illegal. Or at least grounds to have the Boys In Blue pay Governor Fuckhead a little visit telling them to lay the fuck off.

NOPE.

I was given the number for "Scamline" (what?) and sent on my merry way rather perplexed.

My next port of call was my phone company. I wandered into the local phone shop and spoke to a really nice young girl and explained my situation. This is nothing against her, she was really lovely and did genuinely try to help, but it pissed me off none the less. I said "Hello Ms Phone-lady, here is my dilemma" and proceeded to explain the above.

At this point in time, I should explain that I have worked for ALL 4 of the major phone companies in Australia, so I know there are ways and means of obtaining someone's name/address using a phone number.

The young lady was very apologetic and said while she could find out who the person was using her magic system, she couldn't legally give me the information due to the fucking Privacy Act. She changed my phone number for me (at no cost, which was nice of her) and suggested I speak to the Police. I laughed, and told her I'd already done that, but thanks for her help and good day.

What really concerns me is that for at least 6 months I have been getting these calls. At no point have I received any valid help from the people that are employed to help those in need, all because they need to protect Governor Fuckhead's privacy. Am I right in thinking that this is absurd? I'm pretty sure that I will need to be bashed or whatever before anything is done about Governor Fuckhead, and even then they will probably do nothing due to the Privacy Act and what I am pretty sure is downright laziness. The law is obviously only there to protect the guilty and I call bullshit. I can't even get the information I need from the proper authorities to slap this bitch with an AVO or whatever they're called. It sucks.

So my question for you, dear anonymous, is: How do I find out whose phone number this is? Do your thing internet! I command thee! And by "command", I mean, ask very politely.

I will close by saying this:

Governor Fuckhead, you will not beat me. I know who you are, and as soon as I get concrete proof, you will feel my wrath. My entirely legal wrath, in the form of a legal arse-raping with a night-stick. By the LAW. Not by me, but the law. Hooray!

Oh, what a night.

I had an interesting evening. It began with a nice banquet style dinner with some friends, and ended with me scrubbing myself with a wire brush and dettol like a rape victim.

Dinner. It was pretty rad. It was at one of those awesome Singaporean places that are really tiny and the staff speak very little english. Language barriers aside, things went swimmingly. Then I discovered the robo-toilet.

OH MY GOD THE ROBO-TOILET! It's amazing. It automatically steam cleans itself when someone has left, so no shit stains in the bowl people! Or smells! Fuck yeah! I will be using Robo-toilet from now on. This was obviously the highlight of my night.

Next was on to Maguires. I have fond memories of this particular place - lots of fuzzy, warm memories. Tonight, however, was different. We walked in, and some drunk bitch had Linkin Park on repeat on the juke box, followed by "The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson about 10 million fucking times. Then the band started. And folks, let me assure you, they were terrible. Just terrible. They were out of time, old and were heckling people wearing footy jerseys. I was beginning to get a tad frustrated with the entire situation when we decided to move along to another old haunt aptly named Kate O'Reillys.

We arrived at Kates only to discover the atmosphere was decidedly worse, so the boys made the executive decision that we would move along to Wilkies, or as it is now known, the Booby Bar. This place was packed with all types of males, eyes glued to the non-existant tits of the bar staff. It was a teensy bit akward for my friend and I, especially when this drunk, overweight and balding jerk with a terrible beard sidled up to our table and began to interperative dance. He started moving closer and closer to me, so I was understandably terrified and demanded that we leave. Unfortunately, Interperative Dance Guy followed.

We then decided that we would go to this club called "The Code". I begrudgingly handed over my entry fee, and began to walk up the stairs. Well, I tried anyway, cos my feet were literally sticking to the floor. I was surrounded by girls in teeny tiny dresses that I SWEAR were no older than 12 that kept barging into me and yelling "WOOOOOO" at increasingly loud volumes. And the music. Oh god. The music. Terrible. I went downstairs to have a cigarette to keep my rage in check, and as I was walking back up said stairs, I had the unfortunate task of following a...rather portly young lady in a short orange skirt. As I mentioned before, the floors were sticky (probably with a mixture of vomit, semen and shame) and she was lumbering up the centre of the staircase, so I couldn't simply walk around her. Then, it happened. Her shoe came off two stairs above me. She bent over, and ladies and gentleman, what I saw will forever be burned into my retinias. IT CANNOT BE UNSEEN. Bitches need to learn that you MUST wear pants at all times. That was it. Game Over. I turned around and walked out.

When did I become such a grumpy old maid? Goodness.

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!

I was having lunch with my best friend today when we decided to nip outside and enjoy a quiet cigarette together. We noticed that there were several brightly coloured (I'm actually fairly certain the were a lovely shade of Aqua that I immediately wanted to vomit onto, so offensive that colour was to my oh so sensitive eye holes) coffee tins that I could only assume were being used as makeshift ashtrays/cigarette disposal units. One of these tins were strategically placed next to a childs playground in the shade.

Now, for those of you who don't know what the climate is like in North Queensland, temperatures range from "Hot" to "Fucking Hot" to "Jesus Christ I'm Melting", so seeing an ashtray in the shade was a pleasant surprise. It was also the required 4 metres from the entry way, so we were pretty impressed. We immediately headed to said cigarette disposal unit and began happily puffing away and chatting.

It's at this point in the story that I should probably mention that the playground is empty. A barron wasteland of colourful plastic and slippery dips. The grass is brown and looks more like hay than, well, grass. It's THAT dead. No self respecting child would ever be seen rocking out in this plastic jungle. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of them were playing the poker machines, so classy were the people dining around us.

ANYway, there we were, smoking away and having a chat. I don't think anyone walked past us at all during the first 5 or so minutes we were standing there. Then the doors opened and this haggard blonde woman with so much make up on my jaw literally dropped. She was all crow's feet and shame this one. Probably had some of her bright pink Solly's branded lipstick on her teeth too, but I wasn't paying that much attention. To be honest, I was more preoccupied with the sheer amount of slap on her face. It looked like it had been applied with one of those things Katie's brother uses to apply plaster to walls. I forget what they're called, but one of those.

Then she spoke. I think she was attempting to speak to us in one of those teacher like sing-song voices, but all I heard was something akin to nails on a chalk board. She informed us in said brain exploding voice that we could be "heavily fined for smoking so close to a children's play area" (don't forget, said area is deserted) to which I replied "But why is there an ashtray there?" at around the same time Katie said "Well, where are we supposed to go". Queue blank stare and vague finger pointing in the general vacinity of the main street.

We moved along, being the polite citizens that we are, all the while pondering why more people aren't thinking of the children. Seriously, those poor and obviously invisible kiddies could have gotten lung cancer from our stupidity. I was tempted to mention something to the 10 year old sipping a rum and coke at the jaws poker machine, but thought it would be pushing my luck.