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Frodo's Battle for Endor | Nov 12, 2003 13:12
I've fallen into the habit of wanting to start all my posts with the word 'so'. And it would seem I'm not alone.
There's a certain faux-casualness implicit in such a beginning, it's good for dropping significant facts into a conversation without them seeming out of place. It's like we're just finishing a conversation we were having yesterday. "So my Chlamydia has cleared up nicely." "Oh cool, I'm glad about that."
So I've managed to Sméagol my way in to the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King junket in Wellington at the end of the month. And you, dear reader, will be right there with me, albeit in a slightly delayed and six degrees of separation kind of way, as I post and brag, and brag and post and generally gush about the greatness of Sir Pete.
The coolest part of it all is that I get to see the third instalment of Jackson's masterwork TWO DAYS before the world premiere. After which I'm going to run to the nearest crowded place and talk loudly on my cellphone: "So I saw the new Lord of the Rings film…". The next day I get to interview some of the cast (yes guys, Liv; yes ladies, Orlando) and generally make a nuisance of myself on the red carpet the following evening.
The fact that I'm going at all proves to me a couple of things. First, I'm good at Sméagoling. Second, the world is an inherently unfair place. My best mate Ben is one of the biggest Lord of the Rings fans around (while still retaining enough dignity to be cool). He's read all the books countless times, including the Very Hard Going Silmarillion. He knows where the elves came from originally. He hates it when I constantly refer to "the Twin Towers" just to piss him off. He hates it more when I ask why the Ewoks haven't featured yet.
He took the news I was going to Wellington remarkably well, all things considered.
So I can't wait to tell him what I thought of "Return of the Ring".
This is my phaser, this is my gun | Nov 06, 2003 18:17
So I saw the Matrix: Revolutions last night. It was a advance preview thingy – it would be wrong (not to mention unnecessarily wanky) to call it a premiere. Anyway, there was no free food or drink, no-one from Shortland Street, only a couple of people from Pavement, and even they snuck out halfway through…
The one thing that did make it stand out from your run-of-the-mill movie session though, was the presence of a doorman, clutching a metal detector. At first I thought 'Ok, they're trying to do some kind of mock Big-Brother/Agent-Smith thing, albeit on a fairly modest scale.' Turns out no, there was nothing mock about it. The [wonderful] local distributors had word from on high (or AOL Time Warner, which is a actually about as 'on high' as it gets, these days) to search everyone going in for recording devices, including of course, Pxt capable phone.
Now, being a Swimming Pool Pervert from way back, I came so equipped, and was amping to post some appallingly lo-res images for you to look at. But ahhh, foiled again, my phone confiscated and sealed in a manila envelope. Where's David Blane when you need him? (Actually, he'd probably just leave my phone in the envelope for 40 days before opening it, perhaps Houdini's my man.)
So in absence of said images, I give you this:
$ % & $ # # $
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Squint a bit and you can kinda make out Neo, represented in Matrix-code. If that doesn't work for you, it helps to remember, there is no code [sorry, Matrix joke]. In any event, it's better than how my photos would have turned out taken on my shitty cellphone from inside a darkened cinema.
Before I tell you what I thought of the film, it might be good if you read a Really Positive Review by someone who knows more than I do and really liked it.
I too really wanted to like Matrix: Revolutions. Monica Bellucci aside, the second film, Matrix: Reloaded, was disappointing. Too much reliance on half-arsed Stage One Philosophy – "If you knew you were going to make that choice, would you still make it?" and other similarly 'deep' lines. Too much time spent in Zion, which looked like a bad commune, complete with 'trippy' tribal dancing – The Gathering on a Bad Trip. Too much time spent flogging a message that was simultaneously unsubtle and yet rushed/confusing.
If you've seen the second film, and agree with the above summary, I'm sorry, but Matrix: Reloaded is not the make-good you've been waiting for. Apart from a few scenes, the film takes place largely in the "real world", either in Zion or inside the ships. Sartorial excess is replaced with grubby fisherman's rib jerseys. There's too much kissing. Monica Bellucci appears for all of 30 seconds, and doesn't say anything [still…].
The dialogue becomes laughable in the second half, a pastiche of old war films, Star Wars and coaches' half-time pep talks. There's even a "young soldier gets told off by drill sergeant" scene straight from the likes of Full Metal Jacket.
"Where in hell are you from anyway, Private Neo?"
"Sir, The Matrix, sir!"
"Holy dogshit! The Matrix! Only steers and queers come from the Matrix, Private Neo! And you don't look much like a steer to me, so that kinda narrows it down!"
Or at least, that's how I remember it. I would have recorded it, only…
Like a Myna from the Ashes | Nov 03, 2003 12:59
Despite recent swipes from the gnome-like patriarch of New Zealand broadcasting, there are some phenomenally good female journalists around. In some cases it's as though the sixth sense often attributed to the fairer sex is further honed with journalistic skills to a level that is quite frankly frightening with its psychic-like nature.
So I had to laugh when I read Jane Clifton's Listener column last week:
"National still has no viable successor to English, so the gaffes are likely to continue. Don Brash, who began the year as a tenuous potential replacement, has lost ground by developing no discernable political talent."
Still, who was to know? Ms Clifton and I talk at the end of each month, summarising the past few weeks of political goings-on, and for as many months as I can remember, the state of the National leadership has been somewhere on the agenda. There have been so many false starts, red herrings, 'imminent announcements', it would have taken a very brave commentator to pick the week's events and risk crying wolf yet again.
Despite appalling planning (Jane referred to it as "the worst coup I've ever seen"), even worse timing (GE moratorium anyone? Anyone?) and the slimmest of majorities (only two votes), early polling rather curiously shows it as being a good move. Around half the people in a Colmar Brunton poll saw it as a good move for National, and increasing the threat to Labour at the next election. Such polls are typically one dimensional, and it's anyone's guess to what extent respondents saw threat to Labour as increasing. I guess at this stage National are happy with any upward movement.
I spoke to Brash, albeit briefly, on Thursday. How did he respond to Winston Peters' claims that under him National was little more than "Act in drag"? At a time when National needs more than ever to reclaim the middle ground and those floating voters, does he not instead represent a shift to the right?
"I don't believe in policies being left or right" he replied. "I believe that policies are either right or wrong." Ironically, it's exactly the kind of aphorism that you'd expect to hear from someone like Ken Shirley or Muriel Newman. "A hand-up, not a hand-out" anyone?
At least it's a change from a phrase now so entrenched in the Opposition's lexicon that I wouldn't be surprised if they started printing bumper stickers – "It's political correctness… gone maaaaaaad"
Tired old cliché, anyone? Anyone?
Talking Heads | Oct 24, 2003 11:21
And so just like that, we've got a new free-to-air music channel. It was a fairly painless transition all things considered, at least it was from my end. No screwdrivers, no rifling through manuals before expertly wiping all my other presets, no fiddling with the coathanger that passes for a UHF receiver in The Ham.
For the first couple of days, our flat was C4 mad. The opening extravaganza, 'The Top 100 Music Videos of All Time as kinda arbitrarily decided by us' was great. For seven hours we sat glued to the tube as classic after classic rolled on by. Who can forget Godley & Creme's momentous 'Cry'? Yes, quite. Personally, I was delighted that the 'cool factor' was for a moment forgotten, and the inimitable clip for Aha's 'Take On Me' took its place at number three.
The next night, the Sunday, the line-up was inspired. We've played the top 100 videos of all time, now let's REPEAT them. It was good though, having never seen the Chemical Bros amazing 'Let Forever Be' before, I was more than happy for a second look.
Now it's been on for a couple of weeks, the dust has settled and I feel more able to comment. The all-white backdrop seems to be wearing okay, although surely it's only a matter of time before some ne'er-do-well tags it, or leaves a cigarette burn. Even though it's become something of a cliché for music TV in this country, I still would have been happier with a couch. Something a bit more homely, something that wouldn't show up the living room at Sando. As it stands, every time we flick over I get the feeling I should pick up my shoes, give the bench a wipe, take my feet off the table. It's a bit like having Phillipe Starck over for drinks (which so very rarely happens any more at No. 15)
But what about the hosts, you ask? What's my opinion? It strikes me as odd that for a music channel, that's all everyone is talking about. They're only on once every ten minutes or so, and only for 30 seconds at a burst, does it really matter? Sure, I've got my favourites, those I don't mind, and those who make me wish the music would hurry up and come on, but it's hardly the be-all and end-all of the station. Is it? Still, on a week when Richard Long's bung knee and dismissal from TVNZ have both been headline news (Is there any relation between the two, or just a coincidence? Anyone?) I shouldn't be surprised.
I spoke to David Herkt of the now defunct NZ Tabloid dotcom on my show yesterday. Why did they close? He didn't really answer, instead seeking refuge in the "well we set out to achieve what we wanted to achieve" line, whatever that was. Was it traffic charges, perhaps, from the squillions of people who visit the site every hour? The inability to keep the level of 'news' up to the high prurient standards set early on, even when they resorted to simply making up stories?
I suspect it was a combination of all of these, but also in the end, the human factor. No-one really likes being on the outer, and while the attention is fun and ego-stroking for a while, knowing there's an ever growing number of people baying for you blood must make it hard to get to sleep at night. Secretly, I suspect, most of us want to be popular, and I don't see why that would be any different for an insecure, confused teenage pariah.
Asta La Vista, Leighton | Oct 10, 2003 11:15
I'm listening to Leighton Smith at the moment, and he's not annoying me. His words, which have riled me oh so much for oh so long, are like water off the proverbial. It doesn't matter how many times he says "Now, you're wrong, and I'll tell you why you're wrong after this commercial break", today it's not going to break me. It's my last day at work.
I wasn't quite so reserved when I heard him interviewing Bjorn Lomborg the other day. For as long as I care to remember, the Leightonator has been a greenhouse denier. No, there's no such thing as global warming, if there is then it's a natural thing, part of a cycle, and there's no evidence that anything we do (or don't do) has any effect on it.
So along comes Lomborg, his wet-dream interview, his environmental soul mate. He starts the interview audibly bursting with excitement. "So, tell me, is there any such thing as climate change?" "Yes, there is", says Lomborg, presumably to his dismay. Over the course of the next ten minutes we learn, as Russell noted, that Lomborg believes in climate change, that it's our fault, and we can do something about it, albeit not very much and at a great cost. And did our eminent broadcaster learn anything? Apparently not, within a few minutes of the interview's conclusion, Leighton forgot everything he'd heard, and sounded very smug and I-told-you-so.
I interviewed Lomborg myself on Thursday. He seemed very reasonable, although perhaps naïve as to the exact nature of the pact he'd entered. When you're being flown across the world to speak at the behest of the Business Roundtable, you've got to ask yourself whether they're really interested in providing clean water to the third world, or just getting out of whatever levy they're currently facing. I asked him whether, as the poster boy for big business, he was used to this sort of misrepresentation of his message.
"It does worry me, I think there's a lot of people on both sides of the issue who misuse my argument. I'm sure some of the business people are likely to say 'hey sure, cool, we shouldn't do Kyoto, let's buy another car. But most people do want to do good for the planet. And the problem of course is, Greenpeace is not likely to invite me out here, I'd be happy if they did, but I've got to basically take the invitation when I get it."
"But they only provide the microphone, I actually say, and I say to everyone, the same message, namely that we need to get our priorities straight. It's not about cutting down on the environment, it's about using the money in the best way. If we're willing to spend $150b in helping the third world, let's spend it on clean drinking water and not Kyoto. But Bush and other people are likely to hear just the first part of that message, oh don't do Kyoto, and perhaps neglect the other one, and it's their democratic right."
So there you go. Draw your own conclusions, make up your own mind. Exercise your democratic right. I'd just be a bit concerned at the banners hanging over my head as I walked up to the lectern.
But anyway. Change of jobs, effective today. No more Leighton. And he's one of the better ones (don't get me started on Pacific's Janet Wilson). I'm off to work full-time at the place I enjoy being most each week, Radio 95bFM. I'm off to go and make a difference, do some good, rark things up, anything but listen to Leighton Smith ever again:
"Now, I'll tell you why marijuana is destroying this country in a couple of minutes, but right now it's time to talk to Roger, from the Fine Wine Delivery Company…"
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