On Friday night we took Caleb to the airport. He was flying out to Darwin, before heading down to Katherine (or somewhere in the Northern Territory) to visit his biological father for a couple of weeks. This is his second time (or third if you count return-journeys) time flying by himself as an unaccompanied minor. It’s funny because we wouldn’t let Caleb walk 10 minutes down the road to school without adult supervision, but we’re fine to let him jetset around Australia.

Matt (Caleb’s Dad) works in the tourism and hospitality industries and is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades due to the number of different roles he’s had and locations he’s worked at over the years. As he’s been working in the Northern Territory for a year or two, and even before this job, he’s always been into out-doorsy type stuff like camping, fishing etc. etc. and is also fairly good with wildlife (he owns a snake, a turtle and probably a bunch of other reptiles and pets I don’t know about)… not to mention he lives on a property that is literally in the middle of no-where. He was living in a town that had about the same number of residents as my old high-school and the town’s main claim to fame was it’s one and only set of traffic lights. But he’s since moved a little further out and is now living in what could only be best described as a shed.

Kristy had a chat with Caleb earlier today and he’s having a ball so I’m sure that the overly dramatic picture I painted of their place isn’t anywhere near as bad as it sounds, plus Matt and his girlfriend Paula like it… it’s just not my cup-of-tea.

On the topic of camping… I’ve been reflecting back on my experiences from a few weeks ago and now that I’ve caught-up on my sleep (in a very comfortable bed) and I have a functioning internet connection again – in retrospect, the camping experience was pretty fun. Sure there’s a bunch of stuff I’m going to be aware of if we go again, and I’m still certain I would die if you put me in the middle of nowhere, but I’m open to trying it again.

Last night we were given a couple of movie tickets to see Role Models, that Kristy’s Mum had won but couldn’t make the session time. We’ve been to see a few movies lately (Bedtime Stories and Seven Pounds… both of which were pretty good) and had seen previews for Role Models but it just didn’t look like it was going to be particularly funny.

Since the tickets were free, we figured that we had nothing to loose, so we went along and I’m so glad we did because it was one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in ages. All the jokes fall into the category of toilet humour or are generally inappropriate or highly politically incorrect and each one-liner is delivered with a healthy dose of swearing, so if that isn’t your thing, then you probably won’t like it, but it had me in stitches all the way through.

I’ll have to watch it again when it comes-out on DVD to make sure that my opinion hasn’t been swayed by having such low expectations to start with… so I’d appreciate any feedback from anyone else who sees it, but at this point, it’s by far the funniest film I’ve seen all year.

In a couple of weeks is one of my favorite public holidays – Australia Day. I never thought of myself as having deep-seated pride for my country, but there’s something special about drinking beer while sitting in an inflatable kiddies-pool in the back yard; listening to Tripple J’s hottest 100 songs of the previous year with the smell of steak and sausages wafting overhead (along with the odd tennis ball from the game of back-yard cricket next door)… it just doesn’t get much better than that.

This year we’re heading over to Skye and Scottie’s place and amidst the BBQing and beer drinking I believe there’ll be some Wii Sports and Guitar Hero World Tour or Rockband (not sure which) on the cards… so it should be a fun day.

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There is also an interesting segment where they put two advertising firms against each other to create a mock advert for an item that is seemingly impossible to sell – one week they did whale meat, last night they attempted to make celibacy sexy.

I completely understand that this show wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but I love it and it’s great to see them trying something new and different that hasn’t been done before (or at least to my knowledge).

One thing I find particularly interesting is the name of the show. The term ‘Gruen Transfer’ has been described as:

In shopping mall design, the Gruen transfer refers to the moment when consumers respond to “scripted disorientation” cues in the environment. It is named for Austrian architect Victor Gruen (who disavowed such manipulative techniques) and lately popularized by Douglas Rushkoff.

That quote came directly from Wikipedia so we know it MUST be true

Although for a term (even if it is a fairly niche one) you would expect there to be a lot more pages indexed by Google for it. As it turns-out, most of the entries I found when I did a search relate directly to the TV show… with the one exception being the conveniently placed Wikipedia page.

Now the guy Victor Gruen is real… and yes, he was an architect… but no where could I see any literature that suggested he was responsible for using manipulative architectural techniques to persuade shoppers to make purchases.

Makes me wonder if the ABC is conducting its own marketing experiment to see how much traction they can get by promoting a term/concept that previously never existed. If this is their intention, it would be perfectly fitting with the show (which in itself is great) and if it isn’t then I’m just a conspiracy theorist with an interest in marketing and obviously far too much time on my hands.

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So what have I been watching?

• Arrested Development – it’s a pity it got axed
• Entourage
• My Name Is Earl – man I love Earl
• Heroes
• House
• Life
• Dexter
• Journeyman

With the exception of Journeyman, I’m pretty-much up-to-date with all the above shows (with the writer’s strike in the US helping somewhat because most of the current seasons have finished prematurely). Also have a couple of seasons of Life On Mars which I’ll have to check-out as well.

But as the title of the post suggests, I haven’t completely stopped watching movies – I just haven’t written about them for a while… so here we go.

• 88 Minutes – Nothing amazing… Al Pacino has to solve a murder in 88 minutes
• Little Children – Interesting suburban relationship drama
• Letters from Iwo Jima – With so many war movies being focused on the US, it’s great to see another side of the story
• Music and Lyrics – Typical Hugh Grant romantic comedy
• Sunshine – A sci-fi from the writer and director of Trainspotting, The Beach and 28 Days Later (to name but a few of their really great works) but Sunshine was really disappointing. Started-off really well, but lost it towards the end.
• The Host – Fun Japanese Monster flick
• We Are Marshal – Typical small-town US football move
• Factory Girl – An interesting portrayal of Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick (although from further research it appears that it may not be entirely accurate
• Perfect Stranger – Good cast, but still a fairly predictable thriller
• The Science of Sleep – Quirky French/Italian movie which is rather arty and visually hypnitoc
• The Squid and the Whale – Tries a little too hard to be artistic causing it to be more awkward then entertaining
• World Trade Centre – A good movie about a terrible tradgedy but the case of the DVD had quotes like “Best Movie Ever Made”… sure it was good, but I don’t think a movie should gain accolades purely because it’s on a topic people feel strongly about
• Nothing – This was a comedy I found quite intreging and thought provoking… even though the movie itself wasn’t brilliant I loved the concept
• Motorcycle Diaries – Probably the best movie on this whole list – Brilliant!
• The Painted Veil – A slow moving, yet beautiful love story that takes place amidst a cholora epidemic in China
• Sixty Six – Comedy about a boy who’s big barmitzvah ends-up coinciding with 1966 world cup. Although funny in parts, there was something lacking that didn’t quite get it across the line for me
• Arthur and the Invisibles – Looked like a crap kids movie, but it actually wasn’t too bad
• Ratatouille – Up there with some of the better computer animated kids movies
• Bee Movie – Whilst I’m not a huge fan of Seinfeld, this wasn’t too bad

So that’s what I’ve been watching lately…

P.S. I’m sorry if my spelling sucks – I just tried running this through my Firefox spell checker plugin and it said there were too many ’suspicious words’ and wouldn’t check it for me.

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Last weekend Kristy went over to Tangalooma with her Mum, her niece and Caleb. Her Mum, niece and Caleb stayed for the week whilst Kristy had to come back for work.

So whilst they were having a nice relaxing holiday, I had a home-based holiday of my own. It was awesome.

On Saturday I mainly caught-up on work which isn’t exciting, but unfortunately necessary… then on Saturday night I headed into town to catch-up with Mick and check-out the Valley Fiesta.

As it turned-out Mick and I didn’t end-up meeting-up, but I had an awesome night out. I spent most of the evening at the Press Club where I drank, sat in comfy couches and watched my own reality tv show of people interacting whilst intoxicated. Normally when you’re out, you’re busy chatting with friends, waiting to be served at the bar, lining-up for the toilets etc. so you often don’t notice all the happenings around you. It is truly a fascinating thing to observe.

As the night went-on I ended-up chatting with a few people but the highlight was being called in as an independent adjudicator to a debate between a girl ordering tequila shots and the bar tended (it was about who had the strongest accent… don’t ask me why). I sided with the girl and as fate would have it, I scored a tequila shot out of it. She then invited me to join her group of friends for more drinks and we all ended-up hanging-out for the rest of the night (which eventually took us from the Press Club to the Fringe Bar).

It turned-out being a much later night than I had anticipated, so I only had a few hours sleep before joining my parents for a charity lawn-bowls day on Sunday. Our team ended-up winning with some superb rolls made by both Mum and Dad, and on top of that we ended-up walking away with a meat tray (which became my dinner later that night after I had an afternoon snooze).

Also watched a couple of movies – 28 Weeks Later, which disappointed me. I really liked 28 days later and was hoping they wouldn’t stuff it… and although it was ok, it didn’t meet-up to my expectations. Fortunately Cashback which I watched after it was really enjoyable. It was quirky, funny and quite entertaining.

So that was my weekend. Hopefully it won’t take me a whole week to get around to blogging this coming weekend.

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On Friday night we went to see The Bourne Ultimatum and it was brilliant. I love the Bourne movies – the action is always really good but what I like even more are the great locations he ends-up in. I don’t want to give too much away, but even though the movie ties-off a lot of loose ends there’s still a chance that they could make another one… and if they keep doing what they’ve done for the last 3… then I believe there’s no reason not to keep making more!

Lastnight we watched Next which was also pretty good (I like Nick Cage) and The Contract (and even though I like John Cusack, the Contract was pretty lame).

Today we watched Robots with Caleb. He’s owned it for a while and he’s seen it a few times but we’ve never watched it together – so today we did. It was also pretty good.

Next weekend we’re heading-out to the Valley Fiesta (thanks Mick for putting this on our radar – looking forward to catching-up) so hopefully I’ll have something a little more interesting to report this time next week.

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On Saturday night Kristy had a Trivia Night organised by her Dancing School (they used the questions from my brothers Newsome-family trivia night and they went down really well).

Whilst Kristy was at the trivia night, I decided to stay at home and watch a couple of movies. I watched The Number 23 and Zodiac. Both movies were really good. I must admit that I like Jim Carrey playing serious roles and all Fincher’s films rock.

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The Machinist – Christian Bale plays an industrial worker who hasn’t slept in a year and starts going nuts. Fairly dark, but interesting.

The Good German – This had a lot of potential… good actors and artistically shot in black and white to give it a ‘period piece’ feel, but I almost fell asleep watching it.

Smokin’ Aces – A fun, quirky, dark comedic mob movie staring a bunch of TV actors. A good ‘guys’ flick.

The Fountain – Tackles some of the more thought-provoking aspects of mortality, spirituality etc. in a beautifully spectacular way. It gets a little confusing in parts, but still very enjoyable.

Transformers – One word – Brilliant! Can’t wait for all the other Transformers movies that will follow.

Knocked Up – Really disappointed by this one… lots of people had given it rave reviews but I just didn’t find it all that funny. Sure there were a few good laughs, but it certainly isn’t the same level of humour that was seen in the director’s previous flick (40 Year Old Virgin) which I did find quite funny.

Hot Fuzz – Unlike Knocked Up, this was really funny. If you recall how they transformed Dawn of the Dead into Shaun of the Dead (which is brilliant if you haven’t seen it)… well Hot Fuzz is the transformation of Bad Boys applied to a sleeping English town.

The Last Kiss – Romantic comedy starring Zack Braff… not as humorous as Zack usually is though.

Kenny – Hilarious mockumentary about a guy who manages port-a-loo’s. Packed with Aussie colloquialisms and great one-liners… really really good.

Casino Royal – One of the best Bond films I’ve seen. It’s a prequel to all the other Bond flicks, so James isn’t quite as refined but he’s learning.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – Didn’t like it… I became a Potter fan when the third movie came-out (which was what made me watch the first two movies and I ended-up being pleasantly surprised at how good they were). Since then I’ve really liked how Harry has been growing-up, but this movie seemed like that boring chapter of a book that you need to hold the story together, but doesn’t really bring anything amazing to the series.

The Simpsons Movie – Awesome… it was like watching 2 hours of the tv show (which was great because the tv show is really good and I thought they’d some-how stuff it up)… As long as they can keep a good script going there’s no reason why they shouldn’t make more Simpson’s movies.

Shooter – Action flick with Marky Mark… who I like, so it was fun to switch the brain off for a couple of hours and watch him run around and shoot people.

Running with Scissors – Based on the early years of Augusten Burroughs life… his upbringing was so dysfunctional it was scary, which made this movie incredibly off-beat yet funny at the same time.

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Well, I have to say that it’s a great end to the trilogy whilst still leaving things open for more Pirate’s movies (which coincides with an article I read a few weeks ago talking about how Disney are looking at using the same formula to extend a lot of their move franchises).

I’ll try not to post too many spoilers… but I will say that the CGI is great (as always), there’s a very cool cameo from Keith Richards (the man Depp stated he based a lot of Capt’ Jack Sparrows traits on) and some very large-scale pirate ship fight scenes that look rather impressive.

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Babel was really good – I like stories that consist of seemingly unrelated events that progressively merge into one. It gives a far greater meaning to the overall story as you get to see it from all angles – someone once said (when talking about stories that people tell you) that there’s 3 sides to each story… there’s your side, there’s the other persons side… then there’s the truth. No matter how honest you are, and how much you try not to exaggerate, each story will always contain emotions that are unique to the teller of that story – so movies that explore these emotions intrigue me. Magnolia is another great movie which is quite similar in style.

As for TV… I finished watching the end of season 2 of My Name Is Earl, season 2 and 3 of Veronica Mars, season 3 of House and season 1 of Heroes. Heroes is excellent and I can’t wait to see where season 2 takes us. I’ve also started watching the first season of Arrested Development – in my opinion not as funny as Earl, but still very good.

I’m still yet to finish watching the end of season 3 of Entourage and want to try and have a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon sometime this weekend too.

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We gave ourselves about an hour and a half to get into the city for the movie (a drive which can take 30 – 40 minutes on a quiet day), we added some extra time considering we would be commuting during peak hour, plus some additional time knowing the traffic would be busy since it was game night. We even chose a route that completely bypassed the stadium where the game was being held thinking that it wouldn’t be so busy… but none of that made any difference.

It took us about 2 hours to get there which meant we would have missed the first half of the movie. Given the fact that we had just sat through two hours of traffic (most of which was done in first and second gear), we weren’t just going to turn around, so we ended-up checking-out the reasonably new Brisbane Square, did some window shopping in the mall and then came home.

At the time it wasn’t so bad because it was a nice evening out doing something that we normally wouldn’t do, but today everyone has been talking about the football which has been slowly making more and more frustrated that we missed the premier a great movie simply because of a silly football game.

I suppose one good thing is that QLD won the match which is some (albeit very small) consolation.

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