Arty things around town..

So recently I've played the Sydney tourist, doing things around town and checking out many places/events that are happening at the moment. Whilst doing so, I realised that there's plenty of things you can do on a shoestring (i.e. student) budget, so here's a small list -

1. Check out the 17th Biennale of Sydney. Held every two years at the wonderfully secluded Cockatoo Island, get your dose of what contemporary artists are thinking about internationally. There's plenty of film art to confuddle you (including panoramic sets of screens), an interactive green colander display to make you happy and falling pianos for your bemusement.
2. Visit the MCA or the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) for free! Most exhibits are free though if they've put a price, they're definitely worth paying for if at concession rates. At the moment, 'Paths to Abstraction' is being shown at AGNSW for $15 students, $20 adults. With works by Cezanne, Monet, Kandinsky, Delaunay, Matsse & plenty others, take a look while you have the chance before it's over! (19th Sep 2010)
3. Sign up to the Arthouse hotel for free membership and get a free entertainment book worth $1000! I signed up so now you can book your first photography session, life-drawing class/other things for free, and even a few drinks to get you warmed up ;) Whether you want to chillax, have some arty fun or meet other creative (or appreciating) types, why not do it when it costs you practically nothing?
4. Check out free exhibition/gallery openings. Often there's free wine/food too, which is a plus. Art, check. Wine, check. People, check. Music, perhaps. It's fun none-the-less.

and now I'm going to leave you with something beautiful by Klimt.

~Louis Tiffon

Moving Brilliance - A Single Man

(Forgive me for venturing into your territory, Hurley Who?, but this film was practically begging me to. And everyone else, please forgive me for the pretentious-educated-cinephile tone that I seem to have adopted. Soz.)





Produced and directed by the fashion designer Tom Ford and despite knowing that this film is based upon the novel of the same name, you cannot help thinking of this film as a portraiture of his relationship with his partner, Richard Buckley. The lead performance by Colin Firth is simultaneously powerful and subtle, but I could nonetheless still detect traces of the socially-awkward-Englishman character that the English are forever typecast in in American films. But Nicholas Hoult has brushed up considerably in both appearance and performance since his Skins days (although the head-wobbling still persists) and Julianne Moore is the perfect addition to the supporting cast as the pining lover wearied by the past and what could have been.

Beautiful score, brings to mind Carter Burwell’s work in In Bruges. Bonus points, too, for hiring the Mad Men production design team.

The synopsis RottenTomatoes.com provides – “A story that centers on an English professor who, after the sudden death of his partner tries to go about his typical day in Los Angeles.” – is largely inadequate, so watch, watch!





- no name -

BIG News!

This month's "The Big Issue" magazine is a cracker; for just $5 ($2.50 of which goes to the vendor) the annual fiction special features tales from Christos Tsiolkas (author of 'The Slap', which I will get round to reading one of these days), Michel Faber (who writes a very charming story about a humble ticket collector on the London Underground), Karen Hitchcock and other talented Aussie writers, plus gorgeous illustrations and contributions from some of the vendors themselves. Highly recommended :)



A lovely whimsical drawing from Catherine Campbell whose drawings feature in this month's Big Issue and which are cut-out-and-stick-on-one's-wall-worthy

c.l.

Bubble Man

Isn't this photo just so... out there?!

It's by photographer Romain Laurent... His other photos are similarly surreal.

That is all.

~ Hurley Who?

ilk

...is a lovely word indeed. like milk & silk

Oh milk, you are so good for us.

Starting off with a list, because it's apparently a woman's thing and David Ogilvy liked to make a mean list, so why shouldn't we:

1. Went to Waiting For Godot with Ian McKellan last Sunday avec Count Lucifer, intriguing stuff which will be posted up in greater detail later

2. If you want to watch a good hearty love story with French quirks and twists, I say to you:

Watch this film before you die! "Jeux d'enfants" or "Love me if you dare" which is its English title - starring none other than the gorgeous Marion Cotillard and scrumptious Guillaume Canet - has beauty and ugliness, comedy and tragedy, love and hate and other rather epic binary oppositions.

3. Some good blogs/websites for:
a. Breakfast (my favourite meal of the day, I cannot fathom it when people say they haven't had breakfast, I have never once in my life gone without eating something first thing when I wake up)
http://simplybreakfast.blogspot.com/

b. Football nuts and perving on fit men (although the World Cup Fever has died down, being hot never will go out of vogue), note especially the Spanish national team and their goalie Iker Casillas
http://www.kickette.com/

c. indie geek chic tees! shirts with canonical literature printed on them can only be made of win:
http://www.outofprintclothing.com/ShopWomens_a/179.html

d. the good-old Guardian, where the Anglophilic like me get their updates on British news, music and various entertainment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle

Stay tuned! (ah, but what for?)

PS. freak accident of the day: kicked a ball (a rather good neat kick I must say) into the air which in a massive coincidence happened to hit a little boy riding his bike bang on the head. Said little boy swerved and wobbled a bit before crashing and subsequently crying. His father went to comfort him. Am I a bad person for trying to stifle a laugh at the impossible freakishness of the situation? (don't bother answering, I don't really mind being bad, and the kid was wearing a helmet so all was good)

[discoread]

classics, maybe

I'll Kill Her - Soko




Middle of the Hill - Josh Pyke




The Time Is Now (Bambino Casino Mix) - Moloko




Rock 'N Roll - The Sounds




Gone Going - Jack Johnson




Taylor - Jack Johnson



For Jack Johnson, I am willing to overlook Ben Stiller's distressing presence.





- no name -

Who's Reviews: Get Him to the Greek

A strange movie choice, you might say. Well, forced to choose Get Him to the Greek due to the fact that Lucifer and I missed the Prince of Persia session, we were slightly disappointed that we were not going to see chiseled, hairless Jake Gyllenhaal abs, but, rather, Russell Brand’s shock of hairy chest.

The movie is about Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) who is an English has-been rock star planning a comeback concert at the Greek Theatre in LA. Jonah Hill (the cute, chubby dude) plays Aaron Green who works for a record company and is responsible for getting Snow to the Greek Theatre in LA (hence the title of the movie). Of course, things do not run smoothly and in the process of getting Snow from London to LA via Las Vegas, hilarity ensues.

The movie opens with Aldous Snow’s video clip for African Child, a song which was named the 3^rd worst thing for African life (or something to that effect), losing only to “famine and war”. Yep. It’s bad. African stereotypes all round, truly nasty scenes (eg. Snow ‘giving birth’ to an African baby) and writhing, half-naked women galore. The rest of the movie is littered with references to today’s pop culture – there are cameos by Christina Aguilera, Mario Lopez, Pink, the list goes on.

Rose Byrne, plays Jackie Q, Snow’s former girlfriend and a big pop star in her own right. She is hilarious and also brings a bit of seriousness to the movie in the tokenistic ‘confrontation scene’ with Snow. The movie is also peppered with snippets of Jackie Q’s music videos which are hilarious tongue-in-cheek parodies of today’s sexed up female vocal artists.

But there are some truly hilarious moments. Diddy/Piddy/P. Diddy/Puff Daddy/Sean Combs (or whatever you call him these days) plays Aaron’s boss, Sergio (weird name, huh?!). He is a diluted version of Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder (note to all: YouTube Les Grossman. You will thank me later). Sergio’s on-going joke about mind f-ing people is quite funny, but after seeing the beauty that is Les Grossman, no-one can ever quite match that performance and I got the feeling that Diddy based a lot of his performance on Grossman.

Another hilarious scene is where Aaron takes a “Jeffrey” – a delightful concoction of every illicit drug known to man (coke, heroin, speed, weed etc). He goes MENTAL and let’s just say in the midst of the chaos, people stroke furry walls, someone gets whacked with a guitar, Aaron gets raped by an over-eager Pussycat Doll-wannabe and Sergio gets hit by a car.

Of course, there are the terrible, terrible cringe-worthy moments. For example, in one scene, Aldous Snow insists that Aaron hide a small bag of heroin in a very private place as they are going through airport security. The movie does not shy away from tasteless laughs such as this. There is another scene so contrived that I spent the whole time cringing and that is where Aaron’s girlfriend, Daphne, insists that she, Aaron and Snow have a… threesome. And. It. Actually. Happens. AWKWARD!

There is no denying that Get Him to the Greek is crass, overtly sexual and in-your-face. But Lucifer and I were surprisingly touched by the vulnerability Russell Brand managed to show towards the end of the movie – underneath all that hair is a truly sweet person (when he is sober) who is emotionally quite fragile. That aspect made the movie a little more enjoyable.

Get Him to the Greek gets a 6/10 from me, 6.5/10 from Lucifer. But for being surprisingly emotional and touching, and if we’re nicer, it’d be a 7/10.

~ Hurley Who?