Content Sponge #6

Posted on March 4, 2013 by Phil

Content Sponge 6

Shaun Micallef and Kat Stewart are Mr and Mrs Murder

Reading back over these Content Sponges, I have to admit the horrible truth. My television tastes are middle-aged, middlebrow, slightly left of centre. However, lest it be assumed that I only ever watch shows on ABC and SBS, I do occasionally watch commericial telly, but most of that stuff is so popular it barely needs a review.

For example, my pinko, lefty, indie loving latte-sipping friends give me very little respect for enjoying THE BIG BANG THEORY. It is more or less the number one sitcom on the planet right now, so what more need be said than, Hey Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, start writing Rajesh some decent stories, the “so metrosexual he’s practically gay” shtick is played out and Kunal Nayyar deserves better material.

MR AND MRS MURDER

Shaun Micallef’s show MR AND MRS MURDER for the 10 Network is nowhere near where it should be. The premise of a duo of crime-scene cleaners with a penchant for solving mysteries is solid. Having them as a married couple is a nice reworking of the Thin Man, Hart to Hart formula. The problem I fear, is Mr Murder himself.  Micallef is playing Charlie Buchanan as a bit of a goof. A little too much of his comic creation David McGahan is allowed to creep in. He comes off as an oblivious twit in his own comedy universe whereas the other characters, particularly Mrs Murder (Kat Stewart) are in a more straightforward comedy-mystery. Stewart is kicking arse in her role and that shows up what Micallef is doing.

The series has a well-credentialed team behind it­–Tim Pye, Kelly Lefever and Jason Stephens–so there is every chance they will be able to turn things around if the show is allowed to develop. Australians love their imported UK murder mysteries, and with Guy Pearce’s JACK IRISH tele movies rating well enough for more to be commissioned, the bar has been raised on Australian versions of this particular telly format.

THE DOCTOR BLAKE MYSTERIES

Speaking of this category, the DOCTOR BLAKE MYSTERIES have just run on my beloved, socialist ABC. As a period murder-mystery series it blows the MISS FISHER MURDER MYSTERIES out of the water. It looks good and the production design has an attention to detail that the dialogue doesn’t.  Every couple of lines has a modern clanger in it. Craig MacLachlan is working hard to play the part of a World War 2 veteran who is a former POW and now finds himself an alien in his hometown of Ballarat. Nadine Garner plays his housekeeper and once again shows talent way beyond the limitations of the role. The series unfortunately, lacks a little excitement.

WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

You might not have caught up with WOULD I LIE TO YOU? on Aunty, as silly buggers have been played with this show’s timeslot over the last year. All the love Stephen Fry’s QI receives, seems to be withheld from ABC’s other UK comedy-panel-show purchase. I like QI, but feel there are a number of episodes where the panel is coasting. The whole thing has a lightly intellectual gloss that belies the number of your basic sex and bodily function double entendre gags that fly around the set. In other words, the show isn’t as classy as it thinks it is.

By contrast, WOULD I LIE TO YOU? although slightly downmarket from QI seems the harder working and more enjoyable show In My Humble Opinion. This is despite its employing the usually tiresome, “Am I telling a lie or not?” game. I can’t overstate how much I loathe this in all other circumstances. It is right down there with “Battle of the Sexes” as a worn out format. Yet somehow, the WILTY? folk have made it work.

In its first two seasons, the host was the haughty Angus Deayton. Comedian Rob Brydon (GAVIN AND STACEY, THE TRIP) is a more genial character who works well with the team captains, David Mitchell (PEEPSHOW) and Lee Mack (NOT GOING OUT). Mitchell and Mack are perfectly cast as diametric opposites.  Mack works his Northern, working class shtick against Mitchell’s middle-class, university educated persona. Mitchell rants intellectually; Mack throws back rapid-fire gag lines. Brydon breaks things up beautifully with his slightly naïve act. He is a polished performer who knows how to read an autocue as though he is coming up with his introductions and recaps on the fly.

The on-screen talent is ably supported by strong writing. The writers are good at choosing which autobiographical truths from the regulars and guests will ‘play’ well as a potential lie.  The formula makes the show fast-moving and continually entertaining.

 PLEASE LIKE ME

I tuned into the first two episodes of Josh Thomas’s PLEASE LIKE ME with only medium expectations. The trailers were interesting enough to hook my interest, but I was afraid that the thing that I find intermittently irritating about Thomas’s comedy might also permeate the show.

It’s like this, the older I get the more I expect comedians to say something. Comedians in general don’t necessarily see this as their mission. Young comedians in particular balk at meaning or messages.  Being ironic and random has been the favoured stance for twenty-something comedians since the 1980s. Sometimes Thomas says sharply observed and clever things. Other times he seems vague and unfocussed.

None of this makes any difference to his young fans, who absolutely love him. His place in their affections is as Matt Smith’s to Millennial Doctor Who fans. They will doubtless overlook his variable acting in the new series. He plays a younger version of himself, who in the first seconds of the first episode is dumped reasonably amicably by his girl friend who also tells him she believes he is gay. He denies this.

The Josh character then gets involved in an awkward love story with a guy called Geoffrey and a nicely detailed family story. The amount of storyline is ambitious. The conversation between Josh and his young friends is often, yes, random and ironic, but there was plenty happening in the episodes I saw. There were good character observations and witty dialogue. Some of this was lost in the verite mumbling a few of the whippersnappers indulge in.

The oldies in the series are well cast with HOME AND AWAY vet Debra Lawrence and David Robert playing Mum and Dad. Josh’s housemate Tom is played by stand up Tom Ward. Ward gets an “additional” writing credit for the series. I question the need for Tom to be quite so passive when the series has a passive main character.  He has a similar energy to Thomas’s so their scenes together have a degree of ease to them, but don’t pop.  Wade Briggs plays Josh’s new boyfriend. He makes Josh uneasy because he is simply too good looking. Their scenes together are very good.

 The series is credited to Josh Thomas and I expect there is a certain amount of adapted autobiography built into the storylines. I also expect that Liz Doran the series script editor is responsible for some of the series structural gifts.  In episodes 1 and 2 there is a certain clarity in the story telling that suggests the work of an experienced telly talent.

Director Matthew Saville (CLOUD STREET, NOISE) does a great job here. The look of the images is terrific and his understanding of how to stage a piece of visual comedy in particular and direct performance in general, is the show’s greatest asset. I hope Saville directs the entire series. Chris Lilley’s SUMMER HEIGHTS HIGH certainly benefited from his stewardship.

If you don’t like Josh Thomas then this series won’t change your mind. As much as I enjoyed the first episodes, I do hope we see Thomas’s acting improve as the series unfolds. (It’s another version of the Micallef problem). Taking a stand up’s material and adapting it and their stage persona to screen can be a risky proposition. Sam Simmon’s and his team didn’t make the transition with the sketch comedy show PROBLEMS in 2012. So far, I think Josh Thomas and his people have done a good job.

To return to my opening paragraph of so long ago, I would argue that one of the reasons I end up reviewing so much material from our national broadcaster is that their commitment to paying for and developing drama and comedy is noteworthy, whereas I can find very little to say about the stream of Australian reality and lifestyle programming offered by the commercials.

Phil Jeng Kane

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Content Sponge #5

Posted on January 28, 2013 by Phil

Content Sponge_Les MizGet ready to rise, people of Paris!

Hail Zeitgeisters, here are some foreshortened, compressed and encapsulated reviews of films that I have glommed and ingested in the last two weeks.

SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED

Darius (Aubrey Plaza) is an intern at a magazine in Seattle. She becomes part of a three person team who investigate a classified ad which reads: “Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91 Ocean View, WA 99393. You’ll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.”

The writer who heads up the investigation, Jeff (Jake Johnson) has an ulterior motive for going to the seaside town of Ocean View. He grew up there and has some unfinished business. The third of the trio is Arnau (Karan Soni) a bookish biology major who is interning for extra credit. Darius eventually meets Kenneth the man who placed the ad. He is an eccentric who works at the local grocery store. The pair click.

Safety Not Guaranteed is described as a comedy-drama. It could also be described as an Indie Rom Com with a touch of science fiction. However one categorises it, director Colin Trevorrow’s first feature film is a confident debut. Comedian/actor Plaza has a fan base from television’s Parks and Recreation and here she expands upon her usual deadpan palette of expression.  Indie all-rounder Mark Duplass does a solid job of the potentially time travelling Kenneth. Jake Johnson’s pushy, insensitive reporter Jeff is also nicely nuanced.

The film has a slight plot and relies upon an audience bonding with its characters. I saw this on a hot still night at the Somerville Outdoor Cinema.  One of my film-going companions hated this on the grounds that it is filled with whimsy. And it is indeed replete with a whimsical spirit. If that kind of thing bothers you, then avoid this at all costs. I found the conditions that I viewed this film in, less than conducive to enjoying it, but I was fully on board for the ride. Trevorrow and writer Derek Connolly have crafted a sweet tale about some young people who are looking for direction.  (3.5/5)

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Director David O Russell’s latest project is turning out to be the little movie that could. Made for $21 million by the Weinstein Company it has taken quadruple that amount worldwide; not that a film starring Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert Deniro can be precisely described as little, but in an era of tent-pole pictures like The Hobbit and The Avengers–big, expensive films designed to hoover up movie-goers’ readies–it’s heartening to see a film of a more human scale doing well at the box office.

The story concerns Pat Solitano (Cooper) who has spent the last eight months in a mental institution following an incident involving his wife, Nikki. Pat has bipolar disorder and at the time of the incident was extremely stressed. He believes if he stays fit and reads the syllabus his wife is teaching her students, that he can get his life on track and reunite with the estranged Nikki. He has returned home to live with his parents (Deniro, Jacki Weaver). One night he goes to dinner and meets Tiffany, a recent widow who it turns out has been prescribed as many pharmaceuticals as Pat has and is now also trying to bring her life together.

Previously, I’ve only enjoyed Cooper as the A-Type, pain-in-the-ass he played in Wedding Crashers. I found him somewhat opaque in other roles. In SLPb, I felt that I could understand what made his character tick. Jennifer Lawrence is expectedly good; she has been strong in everything I have seen her in. Deniro was also solid. It’s good to see Australia’s Jacki Weaver having international success as the third act to an amazing career. Director David Michod’s casting her for Animal Kingdom (2010) has been a mitzvah.

Russell has adapted Matthew Quick’s novel of the same name, into a film that combines an Indie sensibility with the old school moves of a studio comedy from the 1930s. A lot of the last section concerns gambling and suddenly it feels like we’re in Little Miss Marker territory. Russel has said numerously in interviews that his chief reason for making this is that his son has bi-polar disorder and OCD and he wanted to show him in particular and audiences in general what this can mean for families.  This is Russell’s tightest and most accessible film to date. A crowd pleaser (4/5)

LES MISERABLES

Director Tom Hooper’s adaptation of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg’s theatrical musical of Victor Hugo’s novel is finally out here in the world and is doing very well at the box office and in terms of award nominations. It has garnered nine BAFTA noms and eight Academy Award nominations and won several Golden Globes. It is more or less beyond criticism for people who take awards seriously; and beyond criticism for those who number themselves as fans of the stage musical. And yet, I found the 158 minutes of Les Miz, quite the endurance test.

Before you take up arms for Hugo, Boublil, Schönberg or Cameron Mackintosh, let me get several things out there. I love musicals. I knew Les Miz would be sung all the way through. I think Hugh Jackman is awesome and I always nearly always enjoy Anne Hathaway’s acting. So I didn’t go into this with any negativity, I thought the trailers looked good and I was looking forward to seeing a film version of a musical that I have never managed to see on stage.

I still plan to see it on stage because I don’t think Mr Hooper made the best of the material. Firstly, this decision to record all the singing live seems like a crazed act of sabotage. Movie musicals have used lip-synching since the 1930s. Yes, a live performance isn’t lip-synched either, but we, the audience are working with different expectations when we watch a live performance. Not only do I not expect a pristine vocal delivery from a theatrical Jean Valjean, but I also don’t expect to see into his eyes nor do I expect to sit about one metre away from Fantine when she is belting out I Dreamed a Dream.  Why combine the best visual toys and techniques without providing a similar level of polish for the songs? I think Hooper creates a disconnect between the images and the audio.

I was also put of by the frequency of the close ups and how I felt that affected my response to the performance. To go back to Hathaway’s barn-burning version of I Dreamed A Dream, I was right there emotionally until the acting started.  Hathaway is nailing the song and then she begins to act out its final third; she tears up, she sobs, she hyperventilates with sorrow. I got it, thanks Tom Hooper, this is the lowest point in Fantine’s very hard life. The music and the lyrics had combined beautifully to tell me everything I needed to know, but then everything is underlined three times with a red biro. THIS IS TRAGIC! THIS IS HEARTBREAKING! Yep, tear ducts drying.

By comparison, Samantha Barks in the role of Éponine delivers On My Own without any additional acting, she sings it beautifully and is very moving.  Most of the ensemble singing does the job, too. One Day More and Do You Hear The People Sing? are as rousing as you’d hope. The Master of the House sequence is wittily done.  The set pieces around the barricade are exciting. When the film is opened out to show us the milling, riotous crowds, then the spectacle of the story is up on screen where we want it. Although this will make me sound like David Stratton, some of the handheld camerawork is a bit subpar. There’s some slow reframing and the occasional focus problem. Seems like 60 million bucks doesn’t stretch to reshooting slightly duff takes.

In the end, I enjoyed the film more than not. Jackman and Hathaway are good. Russell Crowe is somewhat miscast. Amanda Seyfried is fine in the poorly-conceived role of Cosette (we care more for her as an infant than as a young woman). Eddie Redmayne whom I found annoying in his television roles like Birdsong, is good in this.  He plays the idealistic Marius who falls for the boring Cosette. Sascha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter are good, however it may be time for HBC to give anything with a mockney or Victorian feel a miss – at least for a while. I am rating the film 3/5 of on account of the numerous Les Miz earworms I’ve tried to eradicate over the last few days.

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Twenty-Three Tweets I Never Tweeted

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Phil

Obviously Social Media is a recent invention. I love it as much as you do. In fact, I love it so much that I wish it had been around for my entire life, but being an ageing Gen X-er, this simply wasn’t possible. So I have performed a brave thought experiment. In the manner of Dr Sam Beckett in television’s QUANTUM LEAP (1989-1993), I have jumped back in my own timeline to create this ‘blog post.

If you’ve never seen the show, it actually has nothing whatever to do with Social Media, whereas this post imagines my Twitter feed for the first twenty years of my life. So the whole QUANTUM LEAP reference was what we used to call borrowed interest. Or bullshit. However, now you’re here, prepare to engage in an artistic happening that is more cutting edge than a box of Ginsu knives.

1967
Was born about three days ago. Took me this long to work out Twitter. House is a bit of a dump. Hope we move to Subi soon.  Ooops. Wet myself again. The indignity.

1968
We took a walk around Subiaco today. I hope The Aged Ps buy something around here soon because house prices will clearly sky rocket. Note to self: Learn to read.

1969
Neil Armstrong walks on THE MOON! And takes all the attention off me. And the Ps brought home some screaming bundle called My Brother. Terrible name.

1970
You’ve charmed the husk right off of the corn, MAME for 1508 performances at Winter Garden Theater NYC! Also, bit tired of these Noddy Books.

1971
John & Yoko record “Power to the People”! Groovy!  Also bit tired of Mum and Dad watching Julie Andrews on telly. Bourgeois or what?

1972
Mother and Father say I must go to “school” next year. It sounds as though it will cut into my plasticine-modelling and Pretending-To-Be-The-Lone-Ranger time.

1973
First day of school. Why are we six year olds shunted off to a prefab here at Rosalie? Why is the alphabet on the board? I know my alphabet already! Boo!

1974
Listen, I get that the Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree and will gladly sing your cheery ditty at School Assembly, but your Lennon and McCartney covers are ill-chosen.

1975
Bloody Kerr and Fraser have sacked Whitlam! Maintain Your Rage Grade Three – refuse to eat your play lunch tomorrow!

1976
Nadia Comaneci scores perfect 10 in gymnastics at the Olympics! But Communism is still the vile conspiracy to enslave the common man. Note to self: buy Metro gum.

1977
I celebrate ten years today. Who are all these posers at my party? I wish they wouldn’t put their sticky mitts on the burnt orange finish of my new Malvern Star bike.

1978
Saw CAPRICORN ONE at Hoyts Wanamba Arcade. Faked Mars landing goes wrong.
Mint idea. They’ll be talking about this one long after they’ve forgotten STAR WARS.

1978 (again)
Some kid described our Adidas Romes and grey cords as a conformist uniform. So we smashed him. Also the 12” remix of BONEY M’s Rasputin is CHOICE!

1979
Western Australian Year ’79 is going really good. 150 Years of Whitey. I didn’t know the word sesqui-centenary before. Probably use it a lot from now on.

1979 (again)
The Iran Hostage Crisis continues. Also, I have fallen in love with Colonel Wilma Deering in TV’s BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th Century. Also, I hate Twiki the robot.

1980
In years to come we will remember the night Joe Dolce premiered Shaddup You Face on Countdown. 13 today. If I were Jewish, I’d be a man by now.

1981
President Reagan shot. Pope John Paul II shot. BUCKS FIZZ win Eurovision with Making Your Mind Up. Truly, terrible things happen in threes.

1982
Farrah Fawcett and Lee Majors divorce! If Jill from CHARLIE’s ANGELS and THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN can’t make it, what hope true love?

1983
Australia 2 wins the America’s Cup! We sing LAND DOWN UNDER for a year. I have double History with a teacher who keeps referring to Hitler’s ‘hypnotic eyes”.

1984
Got my L plates today. Driving a beige TC Cortina. We’re relieved Orwell’s 1984 hasn’t arrived. EURYTHMICS put out terrible song to celebrate. I finish high school.

1985
Fobbed off the TC onto My Brother. Now driving green TE Cortina to my studies at WA Institute of Technology.  I despise semiotics and I fail everything. Leave Uni.

1986
Working for my parents in their restaurant. Hating all customers. Sick of the joke about “fried lice”.  Kurt Waldheim elected Austrian President. No problems foreseen.

1987
I return to uni. Celebrating my 20th. Who are all these posers at my party? I wish they wouldn’t put their sticky mitts on my copy of Camus’ The Stranger.

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Content Sponge #4

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Phil

So Zeitgeisters, I finally got some time to catch up with a number of shows that have been consuming memory on my Korean Teevo.  Here are my reviews.

 

Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War (Nine Network)

Despite its naff title this Channel 9 drama turned out to be surprisingly good. This is no slight on the 9 Network who have done some excellent work in 2012 with THE GREAT PERTH MINT SWINDLE and BEACONSFIELD. I know I’m not the only person who thought a miniseries about the late media tycoon and former Channel 9 owner, changing the face of modern cricket, might not be gripping drama.

Perhaps I should have had a little more faith. The show was made by the folk who brought us the excellent PAPER GIANTS (with Asher Keddie and Rob Carlton) the drama about the creation of Cleo magazine, so they had the advantage of examining Packer once before. HOWZAT! offers a different take on Kerry Packer (Lachy Hulme). Hulme looks less like the real article than Carlton did, but he brings more physical presence to the role. Hulme had only just finished losing the weight he gained to play Todd Russell in BEACONSFIELD when he was asked to play the bulky media mogul.

The scriptwriter for HOWZAT and PAPER GIANTS is Christopher Lee and he works his magic for a second time. It’s difficult to portray iconic media characters and to capture the spirit of an era, but Lee clearly has a knack. Given that Packer’s “war” was really about enabling him to buy the Australian television broadcast rights to the cricket from a reluctant Australian Cricket Board, then this production does a genius job of getting us on his side.

This is achieved by making the story more about international players being paid their due for their skills. There is no doubt that in the early 1970s cricketers were getting pitiful money. The marketing and broadcasting of the sport was still very old school. Therefore Lee’s screenplay feels less about a very rich man getting what he wants and more about a group of rogues flouting tradition and putting one up The Establishment – and what Australian doesn’t enjoy that?

The casting is mostly good, but with such a large number of characters to get through most of the actors only have a few lines and a couple of moments to lodge themselves in your mind. HOWZAT’s Max Walker, Dennis Lillee and Delvene Delaney don’t look too much like the originals. And the series’ idea of Doug Walters is way off. Even in the 1970s he looked like a throwback to the era of Bluey and Curley or perhaps even Dad and Dave. Faux-Walters had a cigarette going in every scene, which may have been accurate, but it also made him look like the only serious smoker in the country. On the other hand, although Damon Gameau had to wear dark contact lenses to play Greg Chappell he looked eerily Chapellesque as a result.

Despite the clever sleight of hand in the writing, the real story is Kerry Packer’s and John Cornell’s. Cornell was the businessman whose ideas of an exhibition test with cricketing stars, sparked Packer’s concept of a world series of cricket. Cornell was better known to the public as the dim character of “Strop” from the Paul Hogan show. Interestingly, Abe Forsythe plays Cornell without his usual recourse to comedy and he does a fine job. Hulme is very good indeed playing a demanding character. Perhaps the best thing about the mini-series is it doesn’t stint in showing us the bullying part of Packer’s personality.

Director Daina Reed does well managing the disparate elements of this story. This isn’t a deep look at the era or the event, but it is done with more care and attention to detail than the various UNDERBELLYs set in the 1970s and ‘80s. For anyone who remembers any of the WSC years this is fun stuff. There is great entertainment in seeing the composing of Mo and Jo’s song “Come on Aussie” being treated as high drama; has a commercial jingle ever seemed so ridiculously stirring? (3/5)

 

Metal Evolution (ABC TV)

Canadian filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFayden’s 11 part VH1 series was released in 2011 and it documents the birth, development and evolution of all the music that has been labelled Heavy Metal. Dunn is the front man for this enterprise and we literally follow him around on aeroplanes and in taxis as he criss-crosses North America and Europe following the history of the music he loves. He speaks with members of various bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Slayer, Judas Priest, Van Halen, Def Leppard, The Stooges, ZZ Top, Soundgarden, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Alice in Chains and Lamb of God and to luminaries like Lars Ulrich, Dave Mustaine, Ted Nugent, Tom Morello, Bruce Dickinson, and Jonathan Davis.

Each episode deals with a branch of the Heavy Metal Family Tree. Just to give you an idea of the kind of detail on offer, the first four episodes are Pre-Metal, Early Metal Part 1 – US Division, Early Metal Part 2 – UK Division and New Wave of British Heavy Metal.

Dunn is neither an amazing interviewer nor an elegant narrator, but he is passionate about Metal and honest about the bits he doesn’t like or understand. In the introduction to the Nu Metal episode, he admits he hated many of the bands that came under that heading. Although a series like this does, by necessity, skate over the top of some of the history and goes into a too much detail about other aspects (Limp Bizkit at Woodstock ’99 for example), it is a solid attempt to explain and celebrate a disparate and sometimes maligned musical genre.

It is currently screening in Australia (Tuesdays 11.20pm, Sundays 12.30am) on ABC 2. Two episodes remain. The current and one previous episode are up on iView. (4/5)

 

Rake (ABC TV)

RAKE, the ABC series starring Richard Roxburgh as Cleaver Greene, a hedonistic criminal lawyer, is in its second season. The first season was patchy at times, but showed promise. The British seem to do this sort of thing well, but for some reason, Australian attempts at giving an established acting talent their own quality cop, doc or lawyer series often seem to fall flat (HALIFAX FP anyone?). But not this time.

The show is pitched somewhere between RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY and CALIFORNICATION. Series’ creators Roxburgh, Peter Duncan and Charles Waterstreet have given us a memorably flawed character. Greene has a high opinion of himself despite overwhelming evidence that he has stuffed up his life professionally and personally. He continually underestimates his opponents and bites off more than he can chew. He is a poor loser and is not dignified in victory. He is not your everyday Aussie battler. He is not a humble, good bloke who knows his place. Cleaver Greene is the anti-Rafter.

One and a bit seasons into this show and the various story strands involving Greene’s disappointed family and friends and his many messy relationships, have percolated nicely. The audience doesn’t necessarily know which politician, judge, disgruntled ex-client or ex-lover might crash into Greene’s world next and that keeps things from being too predictable.

What saves this from becoming as off-putting as CALIFORNICATION is that Greene seems to be making some attempt to better himself. There was a nice moment in last week’s episode where he started out making a quasi-confession to a priest and then it became something different, almost a victory speech, but one he couldn’t fully invest in. It’s that kind of ambiguity that makes this good television. Roxburgh mostly plays Greene for comedy but he is capable of moving the audience when he needs to. The priest was a bit part played by the excellent Tony Barry. Many of the guest roles are played actors that we don’t see on our screens often enough.

There are a number of writers involved, but I find the episodes written by veteran writer-producer Andrew Knight are the funniest and most satirically on-target. Knight also script edits the show and the undercurrent of corruption and cronyism that flows beneath RAKE nicely evokes what many of us think of NSW politics. (3/5)


Lowdown (ABC TV)

The second season of LOWDOWN is currently running on ABC on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Created by Adam Zwar and Amanda Brotchie it follows the adventures of an entertainment reporter, the reliably self-centred Alex Burchill.

Sadly, this AWGIE award-winning comedy has remained exactly the same in its second season. Despite Zwar’s actual years of experience as a journalist in Melbourne, his show somehow doesn’t persuade as an insider’s look into that world. Yes, it’s a comedy not a documentary, but it needs to be funnier if it isn’t striving for accuracy. At this point, I will admit my no years of being a journalist do not make me the best judge of how well the workplace part of this sitcom operates, so if any journalist does sees this review whilst trolling the world of personal ‘blogs I will be more than happy to hear that LOWDOWN feels exactly right to them.

I have enjoyed Zwar’s other work, the original WILFRED television series was funny and AGONY UNCLES was a very smart and entertaining show. Apart from Brotchie and Zwar, LOWDOWN is also written by Trudy Hellier. Andrew Knight is again credited as script editor.

LOWDOWN seems to be less about the Melburnian media than a whimsical take on the World of Alex Burchill. The relationships between Burchill and the regular characters–his sometimes girlfriend Rita (Beth Buchannan), his photographer mate Bob (Paul Denny), his editor Howard (Kim Gyngell) and his Doctor, James (Dalian Evans)–all have a slightly off-beat feel to them. Burchill’s attitude seems to be one of slight disbelief as he is beset by these oddballs. Zwar is good at this and in fact all the cast are good in their roles and have funny moments.

I wonder if my reaction to this show is a reaction to what I think it should be, rather than what it is. If so, I would argue it has the wrong title. It isn’t very low or down. If anything it’s rather pleasant and laidback. But who’s going to watch a show about the scurrilous world of celebrity gossip called LAIDBACK? (2/5)

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Film Review: Prometheus (2012)

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Phil

Prometheus (2012), US, 124 mins
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba
Rating: 2/5

A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race.

There appears to be two main schools of opinions developing about Ridley Scott’s new film PROMETHEUS. One school, of which I am a pupil, believes that the story is all important and that this element becomes confused and nonsensical in the second-half, rendering the movie pointless. The other school of thought is director Ridley Scott hath delivered unto us a feast for the eye that is truly exciting and worth plunking down 25 Australian quid to see.

Fanboys and Fangirls have been waiting with great anticipation for Scott’s first science fiction film for thirty years. He redefined the genre first with ALIEN (1979) and then with BLADE RUNNER (1982). So perhaps expectations for PROMETHEUS were a little high. Those of us who are fans of ALIEN should have sensed the warning in Mr Scott’s statement that the new movie would not be a prequel but “share the same DNA” as ALIEN. This, it turns out is mere spin. It’s a prequel.

The surprising thing for those of us who have heard rumours of how little Mr Scott cares for the James Cameron sequel ALIENS, is how much PROMETHEUS also appears to share genetic material with that film.

I did find PROMETHEUS ravishing to the eye. There is a certain pleasure in seeing images handled with this kind of mastery. Scott utterly understands light and texture and is constantly making us see surfaces and into the shadows in a way that brings you into the world far more so than the gimmickry of the movie’s stereoscopic presentation. So, I was hooked for about 40 minutes. Even though very little happened, I remained hopeful.

From the moment the brains trust from Weyland Corporation arrive on the rock they hope to find inhabited by the “Engineers” of the human race, nothing they do makes sense. Humanity’s best and brightest react to their new environment with the cool intelligence of teens arriving at Camp Crystal Lake.  Sure, in the future we could send a team of posturing dickheads to blunder around the site of the only extraterrestrial life we have ever encountered, but seriously, the folks from television’s Time Team would have done a better job than these movie stereotypes.

If you enjoy movement and screaming for its own sake, then there’s plenty of action here. The original ALIEN was THE OLD DARK HOUSE meets JAWS. We suspended our disbelief while the crew of the Nostromo were picked off one by one. I couldn’t understand the motivations or actions of the crew of the Prometheus, so I wasn’t invested in their fate.  Jon Spaights and Damon Lindelof have written a nonsensical screenplay. Lindelof is known for his work on COWBOYS AND ALIENS and television’s LOST among other things. The writers were charged with the task of bringing in the Erich Von Däniken style “gods” into the narrative and for mine, have failed utterly in this.

The best performances are from Michael Fassbender as an android and from Noomi Rapace as scientist Elizabeth Shaw.  Charlize Theron and Idris Elba were given almost nothing to do.

If you don’t think about the story, there is some chance you might be entertained by this movie. PROMETHEUS is currently screening in Australia.

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Content Sponge #3

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Phil

Welcome to the third of my semi-regular Content Sponge! posts where I write about the telly, films and (sometimes) books I have ingested lately.

TELEVISION

Doctor Who (Seasons 1-4)

I have deeply disliked Matt Smith as the latest Doctor and his poorly conceived adventures (Spitfires flying in space, multi-coloured Daleks, various stupid hats, pointless babbling) so much, that recently when ABC 2 replayed the seasons 1 to 4 (from its relaunch in 2005 to 2010), I decided to have a look to see if something was off with my sensors. For those playing at home, this was the era of Doctors 9 (Christopher Eccleston) and 10 (David Tennant).

On a second viewing, I still didn’t like the egregiously cute Adipose, the sonic screwdriver that can fix or break anything (except wood), the Doctor’s use of what is more or less magic and I remained unconvinced by the usually excellent John Sim as The Master. (Crappest. Master. Ever.) Seasons 1–4 saw the new Doctor(s) under the aegis of showrunner Russel T. Davies (QUEER AS FOLK, TORCHWOOD). He reconceived The Doctor as a casualty of war who found it difficult to make friends or form relationships. This was the best and effectively most adult part of the show. (3/5)

The show’s creative team changed in season 5. All the touchy-feely stuff has been shorn off in favour of the boys’ own adventures of L’il Matty and his hot girl companions (apologies to the excellent Arthur Darvill). To me, this feels like a retrograde step and an obvious shift back towards DOCTOR WHO’s original young demographic. Clearly relationships in TV science fiction are only for women, gay showrunners and grumpy old Gen X-ers like myself.

 

Sherlock (Seasons 1-2)

Speaking of the new DOCTOR WHO, current showrunner Steven Moffatt (PRESS GANG, COUPLING) is also responsible for the new Sherlock Holmes with Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. Working with Mark Gatis (THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN) the pair have brilliantly re-imagined the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories in modern London. Not only does this television adaptation blow Guy Ritchie’s silly version to smithereens (yes, I like Downey as much you do, but the character is BS), it also makes the 1980s telly version with Jeremy Brett seem rather staid by comparison. Martin Freeman makes a convincing modern Dr Watson and most of the updatings (mobile phone communications, genetic engineering, Watson’s blog) make perfect sense. The first season was good (3/5), the second was even better (4/5).

 

FILM

The Artist (2012)

The 2012 Oscar winner for Best Picture is a funny, dazzling achievement that borrows heavily from many old movies, especially SINGING IN THE RAIN (1952) and A STAR IS BORN (1937). Jean Dujardin, who won a Best Actor Oscar, is perfectly cast as a silent film actor who loses everything. The film can be faulted for being overly sentimental, melodramatic and not really being about anything much. However it makes a modern audience concentrate on silent filmmaking in black and white in 2012 and for this audacious move, director Michel Hazanavicius deserves at least an elephant stamp and a gold star. The Academy went further and gave him the Best Director Oscar.  (3/5)

 

Attack The Block (2011)

Some critics and audiences disliked this sci-fi comedy horror because they felt it glorified criminals. However, I found Joe Cornish’s directorial debut somewhat more subtle and clever than that.  Aliens attack a council estate in South London and a street gang have to defend “The Block”. The setting is unusual, the characters atypical and the dialogue is unlike anything most of us have ever heard at the movies. This fast moving action film has the scariest, cheaply-made aliens I’ve seen in a long time.  Thanks to excellent post-production and top notch cinematography these monsters are the stuff of childhood nightmares; indistinct, many-fanged creatures waiting to tear you apart. (3.5/5)

 

John Carter (2012)

During my sci-fi geek childhood, I knew John Carter of Mars as an heroic Edgar Rice Burroughs character.  JOHN CARTER OF MARS is also the title of the eleventh and final of Burroughs’ chronicles of life on the planet that we call Mars but the natives know as Barsoom. Over the years, many have been captivated by these sci-fi adventure tales, among them Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (FINDING NEMO, WALL-E etc). Stanton wanted to make a big budget version of the Carter story A PRINCESS FROM MARS in time for its centenary. He succeeded in this but critical and audience opinion has been split on how good the new movie is. The big theory on the Internets is that this 100-year-old tale has inspired so much later science fiction that it now seems derivative of its imitators. Certainly it is easy to watch the film and find ideas later swiped by STAR WARS IV, FLASH GORDON and DUNE.

I thought the movie was intermittently exciting, had stunning art direction and effects and some good performances from an excellent cast: Ciarin Hinds, Dominc West, James Purefoy, Willem Dafoe and Lynn Collins. One of my movie buddies said it could have had more joy about it; at times it WAS a little po-faced. I think its biggest weakness was the casting of Taylor Kitsch as John Carter. Although a number of fans have been thrilled by his strapping beef-cake-itude, he was unable to bring much charisma or indeed joy to the central role.  (2.5/5)

Regards,

Phil Jeng Kane

 

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Content Sponge #2

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Phil

Welcome to the second of my semi-regular Content Sponge! posts where I write about the telly, films and books I have ingested lately.

HOMELAND (2012)

I have seen the first couple of episodes and feel perhaps this was overly hyped as a great piece of television.  I will let the PR folk describe the premise: “Homeland focusses on Marine Sergeant Nicholas Brody, who returns home eight years after going missing in Iraq, and Carrie Mathison, a driven (and possibly unstable) CIA officer who suspects he might be plotting an attack on America.”

The series’ creator Gideon Raff made a similar show for television in Israel. The co-developers of the US series are former 24 writers, and frankly, this is how the show feels to me–a classy 24. British actor Damien Lewis plays Brody and is excellent as always. Clair Danes is very watchable as the “Starling-esque” Mathison, but I found the premise a bit far-fetched and was never fully committed to the story for that reason. Morena Baccarin who played the chilly lead alien Anna, in the boring remake of the series V, is excellent here in the role of Jessica Brody, the wife who is trying to deal with her damaged husband. Rating - 3/5

 

BOSSY PANTS (2011)

I’m a Tina Fey fan and expected to be amused by her best-selling book, so (weirdly) I had an ulterior motive for reading this. Like many, I don’t believe I read enough and now I’m dealing with the feeling that the e-reading revolution is racing by without me. So I grabbed a Kindle app for my ‘phone and downloaded Bossy Pants. I figured that if I could get used to reading something light in a form that was challenging (the small screen of my ‘phone) then this would help me accept the virtual reading future.

And it did. At first, I was slightly annoyed with the screen size, font size and general non-real-bookishness of the experience, but by halfway through it felt more or less like reading an “actual” book.

If you don’t know who Fey is, she is the mind behind the movie Mean Girls (2004) and the sitcom 30 Rock among other things. Her book Bossy Pants was as funny as I thought it would be. I would have preferred a more straightforward autobiography, but Fey’s essentially guarded nature dictates the style. She tells analytical anecdotes about her childhood and adolescence, shares fascinating insights into her exalted level of show business, but her emotional life is off limits. She clearly exempts herself from the reality TV/tabloid part of the culture with its demand for tears and confession; the tough-minded, professional creative is evident on every page. I really enjoyed this and give it a 4/5.

 

COMMERCIAL KINGS (2011)

If you know what “Nope! Chuck Testa” means then you probably know all you need to about Rhett and Link the self-proclaimed Commercial Kings. If this last sentence seems like gibberish, then get onto the Google, YouTube and Wikipedia and type in “Chuck Testa.”

Rhett McLaughlin and Lincoln Neal are a pair of young filmmakers who originally hail from North Carolina. If you have spent any time at all trawling the ‘net for comedy videos then you have undoubtedly come across their award-winning shorts. This series is basically what happens when viral talent tries to adapt to cable. Their stated aim is to make “legendary local commercials”.  Which of course means intentional stilted acting, weird props and some dodgy selling propositions.

So the series appeals to the “so bad it’s good” crowd. But Rhett and Link don’t want to be viewed only as smug hipsters making crappy commercials; we see them strategising and trying out the products and services they will eventually make an ad for. Two businesses are featured per episode. The results can be weirdly enjoyable and at their best these commercials have a “Tim and Eric” feel without the sexual perversion.

My main nitpick about this series is Rhett, and especially Link, lack a common touch. Their clients run small businesses. They are exposed in this process, while Rhett and Link can seem above it all.  At one level we are encouraged to laugh at the cat lady and the man who loves his chilli dogs. These are American eccentrics with small, strange dreams.  But their dreams and their businesses mean a lot to them, so why does a slight feeling of ridicule permeate this show? Engaging but not compelling – 3/5.

 

UNDERWORLD AWAKENING (2012)

Underworld Awakening is so titled to give the franchise a sense of renewal and to diguise the fact that this is the fourth film in the series.  For the sake of accuracy and to be a little bit annoying,  I have decided to reinstate the franchise’s correct numbering for this review.

The original Underworld (2003) was a pretty good re-jig of the vampire and werewolf mythologies. It wasn’t original but it served up the action and characters with enough variation and visual “jazz handery” to keep you watching. The “Kate Beckinsale is a hot vampire in a catsuit” was also a large element of the movie’s success.

Underworld 4: The Color of Money is egregiously bad.  There has been a war between the Humans, the Vamps and the Lycans (werewolves) and–assuming you’re human– our side won. Vampire Selene (Beckinsale) has been kidnapped and put into deep freeze in a medical lab for a dozen years. She escapes and goes to look for her hybrid vampire/werewolf lover Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman). She finds herself in a hostile new world where she needs sanctuary and friends.  Sadly, she has Gwyneth Paltrow’s knack of getting people to like her. Wherever Selene goes there is someone telling her to move on or attempting to shoot her in the head with high tech weaponry.

However, Selene is an ancient fighter who has skills the equal of the Chuck Norris Internet meme. She is never truly bested in battle because she commands the power of darkness and cutting edge visual effects. Nothing fazes her. In fact, for 95% of the movie’s length, no emotion whatsoever is allowed to disturb Beckinsale’s porcelain visage. Selene’s thoughts and feelings are secret, which is probably desirable in teenage fanboy land; practically nothing affects her emotional equilibrium.

Unfortunately this means Underworld 4: The Recashening has a hero who is difficult to give a toss about. Beckinsale’s Selene is a pouting cipher who fails to engage anyone not interested in her rather mannered sex appeal. By this, I mean she does a lot slightly unnatural posing in shots. There’s plenty of silliness like Selene placing her leg and turning her foot at a visually alluring angle while she primes grenades. If they were taking the piss this would be funny, but U4 is deadly serious about its nonsense

Underworld 4: The Sound of Kerching! is a dumb, roller-coaster ride where things just happen with neither reason nor the laws of physics coming into play.  I hated every moment of this preposterous, lazy film – 1/5.

Phil Jeng Kane

 

 

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War of the Egg Cups

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Phil

My mother is a hoarder, however not the kind you’ll see on reality television. Her home is neat and uncluttered. All the hoarded items are neatly stored away in cupboards. Many of the things she has kept are decades old. I was at my parents’ house on Saturday and I was looking for some teabags and I noticed they were kept in a type of take away container (the T-750) that we used in our family’s restaurant business thirty years ago. Next to that was a plastic cup that I remembered taking with me on a Scout camp in 1979. I fossicked around a little more hoping to find the egg cups that my brother and I used when we were kids, but Mum thought they’d been given away.

The memory of the egg cups loom large for my bro’ and I because they were a constant source of irritation. When I was 8 and he was 6, we fought incessantly over who would get which egg cup. They were standard ceramic egg cups identical in shape and size. Both were banded at the rim and at the base with a thin line of gold paint. The only actual difference between them was one egg cup was pale green and the other was fire engine red.

Naturally we both wanted the red egg cup. My brother was never happier than when he had his dry, hard-boiled egg firmly held by Ol’Red. I felt the same, except I preferred my egg slightly soft. The paleness of the green was the problem. If that shade of green had been a match for the electricity and vibrancy suggested by Ol’Red, then it wouldn’t have seemed such a compromise. But we both knew that no egg tasted as good the moment it got into the clutches of Paley G. Dad said the colour of the egg cup made no difference and we took this to be one of the transparent half-truths of parenthood. He had to say that so we didn’t fight.

As the older brother, I engaged in a variety of tactics to get the red egg cup. I would call dibs, simply grab it first out of the china cabinet or attempt bribery. My mother would have none of it. She made sure we strictly alternated green and red.  Whenever I was stuck on green, I ate with a little less pleasure and fixed my pupils of rage on my brother as he supped on his desiccated yolk, washed down with a side order of gloat.

The battle of Green versus Red was only part of the morning routine. I had to have a tea with milk and two sugars. I had this every morning until I was seventeen when I decided I hated tea. I have since learnt that what I hated was approximately 3300 Lipton teas in a row for more than a decade.

We had to get ourselves out the door by 8.30 in order to arrive at school on time. Mostly we walked the seven blocks, but sometimes we be driven by our two-doors-down neighbour. (The following names have been changed because I’m a control freak.) Mr Peruzza would chauffeur us up to school in his green Ford Falcon XB because we were friends with his son Giacomo. His daughter Nina would also be along for the ride, but we had zero interest in her and her mysterious agenda and motivations.  She probably inherited this quality from her enigmatic father. What he meant or thought was unknown because Mr Peruzza wouldn’t speak to us, exactly. When my brother and I got in the car, he would issue a string of sounds, which I recall being somewhere between a hum and series of grunts. “Good thanks,” was our reply. Then he would fiddle with the radio to tune into John Fryer and Peter Dean and light up another Peter Jackson cigarette.  Some may balk at the idea of our going on a trip in a car filled with tobacco smoke and wearing no seat belt, but if you ask me the greater harm was the Radio 6IX playlist. I don’t believe any child should be subjected to as many rotations of the pop music version of The Lord’s Prayer, by Sister Janet Mead, as we were. If you don’t know it, YouTube it; you’ll find the experience almost as instructional as we did.

When we got a little bit older, I went through a phase of purposely using the green egg cup. I actually became fond of Paley G and found Old Red’s vibe a little too much. I realised that I had overlooked the serenity of green for the garishness of red. I had chosen bustling rouge over zen green. This had to change. I was older and now I could see that I was more on green’s wavelength and colour temperature. I think this and the colour of Mr Peruzza’s Falcon XC led eventually to my painting my room green.

Or maybe I’m just opportunistically grabbing random facts and connecting the dots any which way. After all, isn’t that what we’d expect of a Generation X-er raised on a diet of boiled eggs and white tea?

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Seek Wisdom

Posted on January 13, 2012 by Phil

Today is my birthday. So I beg your indulgence for the rambling that is to follow.

I’m a Capricorn if you believe in such things. Scorpio rising, but credibility sinking for about half of you reading these first sentences. But wait, there’s even more astrology. According to the Chinese, I’m also a Fire Horse. The horoscopically savvy among you can use that to carbon date me exactly. But why bother? I’ll just ‘fess up. I’m 45 today.

Older readers will scoff at my whipper-snappishness. Younger ones will recoil in horror at the thought of my being (and therefore their one day becoming) so very, very old. This age thing is all relative. We know this. A friend asked me yesterday if I felt my age and I don’t, because until your body really tells you how old you are, you can fool yourself that time isn’t passing.

My eyesight isn’t what it was. After 45 years of gravity pulling on my eyeballs, my lenses are slightly slack and so I can’t focus on close items. Reading a ‘phonebook is out of the question no matter how good the lighting conditions are. Fortunately here technology has rescued me with the advent of the Internet. I can mostly read a road map, but here again the digital age means I don’t need to very often. Like many people my age, I need to get out the specs to check small print. Big deal. It’s a minor inconvenience that I don’t need to think about.

When I was at a new dentist recently he asked me how old I was. He told me that my back teeth have the pattern of wear and cracking consistent with my age. He didn’t mention if being fed up to those teeth had contributed to the erosion. I didn’t want to hear about it, but then again he wasn’t saying, “We’ll have to whip all this out and give you a Peter Waltham special”. (Are you with me Curtin FM audience?)

So, like that lovely rocky ridge, the Darling Scarp, I am wearing down slowly; tiny bit by tiny bit. And it’s imperceptible. That’s the cruel and kind thing. I don’t have to check the location of all my bits every morning, like Mr Potato Head or a Lego Man. I am relatively the same from day to day, existentialists.

WE are all relatively the same from day to day. Sorry those older readers who haven’t already left to watch Foreign Correspondent on iView. You are all too aware of all of this. Younger readers, none of this will matter for a good ten or twenty years. That illusion of being bulletproof will take you up to your forties if you’re lucky. Everyone deserves to feel invincible and revel in the delusion that you will be the first one to avoid ageing and death.

And at some level it is about the Big Dirt Nap. How does one fill in the hours between now and then? Becoming indispensable at work? Raising a family? Learning Esperanto? Learning Elvish? Tuck pointing the patio? Teaching a new dog old tricks? There is more than one kind of Biological Clock. Are we using our time in the best way possible? At this point, of my meandering dissertation, I could introduce God, Love or Increased Personal Wealth as one of the big reductive answers to all my questions. However, thanks to my Chinese Buddhist mother and my agnostic, socialist Irish father and my (mostly) free 1980s university education, I am far too pluralist, humanist and unpersuadable to believe in any one idea. Just believing in any idea has been a long struggle for me. (Thank you, 1990s therapy sessions).

When I was 18, I drove my TE Cortina with its 3.3 litre engine and 6 cylinders very, very quickly. I used to try to shave down the time it took me to get from home to uni. I wasn’t really a revhead and my car wasn’t particularly fast or powerful. But it was potentially too much for me. One day, I was driving three of my closest friends through a winding road in one of the newer Northern suburbs. There were no street trees and only a few houses, so I thought I had clear vision of everything up ahead. I was probably driving about 90ks or so and somehow I nearly smashed head on into a car speeding in the opposite direction driven by someone equally young and stupid. I hit the brakes and skidded to halt. The other car just kept driving. The dust subsided and the car smelled of burnt rubber and brake pads. For a few seconds afterwards, the four of us were on pause. We all had the same thought. That was so fucking close. Then we laughed and I drove on.

So a near miss and a non-story. What was I saying? What is my point? Why am I here? Twenty-seven years ago when I didn’t die in my green Cortina, I was a blank slate. Today I feel like a palimpsest – a page that has been written on and erased so it can be written on again. I learn things but some of them don’t stick. I experience things, but some of it just seems to disappear.  At 18, I imagined that I would know more and understand more today.

We have an expectation that this journey is about becoming wise. I couldn’t feel further from it. I don’t even understand the rules of Deal or No Deal.

Seek Wisdom is the motto of the University of WA and as mottoes go, it’s pretty good. I got my degree and diploma from there and proceeded to do very little with them for a number of years. First I had to get a clue.

Maybe certainty only exists in retrospect. Maybe wisdom is the thing we think we need to deliver certainty. If I am wise enough I will understand how to live. Then I will be able to do so with certainty and confidence. I won’t be fearful and I will be able to do…what?

Damn you pluralist, humanist eurasian questioning reflex. Just goddamn relax and believe in your football team, the writings of Dan Brown, the philosophy of Machiavelli, the writings of JK Rowling, the philosophy of Barnaby Joyce.  Relax and put your feet up and have another scotch…egg and let the Rafters, the Bathurst 1000, the Hottest 100 wash over you in a fine automatic Glade aromatic mist.

Nope, I can’t relax. I can’t not think in circles. I am not wise and not certain. I am making it up as I go.

And that will have to do for now.

Phil Jeng Kane

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Glad All Over

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Phil

I was watching CAREER OPPORTUNITIES at 4.30 this morning. Avid readers of my every word (I’m looking at you cyberstalker fangirl) will recall I wrote of this forgotten 1991 John Hughes penned and produced flick in my other blog. And while I was being less-than-thoroughly engaged by it, I was confronted by the image of a character getting up for a midnight snack or raiding the icebox or some other mid-century slang term. And I was instantly annoyed by the fact that he had a plate of fried chicken just sitting there naked on the top shelf of his Westinghouse. Chicken. Plate. Fridge. Boom! (see below)

Who does that? Who leaves cooked, unwrapped meat in the main body of their refrigerator? Who doesn’t whip out the clingfilm or the Glad wrap and seal that sucker into a plastic prison on the plate? Who doesn’t employ a transparent, non-permeable polymer membrane to cover their leftovers and not leave them exposed to the forbidding atmosphere of their Frigidaire? No one? Everyone? Am I merely the product of a germophobe mother and therefore unequipped to judge this seemingly odd food-handling decision? I decided to check on line to see if there were others who. like me, were repulsed at the thought of leaving food unprotected in their Kelvinator. I found an online forum with cheering responses such as these:

  • Absolutely everything in my fridge has a cover of some sort. You can thank my mother for that??
  • I’ve been known to stick a pizza box in there, but I always feel wrong about that — like there’s too much air around the food for it to count as covered.
  • I cover everything. If I put something in the fridge uncovered, I would feel very uneasy about it. The fact that it’s in there, so vulnerable and unprotected, would prey on my mind continuously. I’d probably have nightmares about it.

So I am not alone in finding this behaviour unconscionable. In numerous other places online I also found food safety authorities pointing out that food left unwrapped dries out more quickly and can potentially “stink up” your Fisher and Paykel.

I assume this outrageous flouting of food safety best practice happens in movies for a number of reasons. Firstly, so we the audience, can immediately register that it’s chicken or cold cuts or leftover lasagne. Secondly, the actor is left free to externalise the very essence of pensiveness or worry or whatever they’re supposed to be putting across.

Whereas I’m sure that Dustin Hoffman is more than capable of making us understand that his character is concerned for the whereabouts of his daughter whilst he peels back a layer of tinfoil from last night’s apricot chicken–maybe this is beyond the remit of others of the acting fraternity. The man has won two academy awards, after all.

Similarly, if Meryl Streep were to assay the role of Gertrude in Hamlet, I can see her being all–Be thou assur’d, if words be made of breath, and breath of life, I have no life to breathe, what thou hast said to me–all while she removes Wiener schnitzel from a ziplock bag. But she too is a dual Oscar winner.

Whatever the reasons for movies continuing to promote these unsafe food storage practices, I would urge you all to take the prophylactic measure of wrapping your leftovers when abandoning them in your Samsung 2-door. Or better still, follow my lead in buying and using a ridiculous number of faux Tupperware containers from Willow or Décor, but never, ever Ikea.

Phil Jeng Kane

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