Twenty20 - Cricket or Something Else...

I'm not sold.

After tonights Innaugural International Twenty20 Match on Australian soil i'm still trying to work out whether i'm interested in the game or not.

To me, part of the beauty of cricket is the fact that it isn't over in 3 hours. You actually have to watch/listen/be interested in a match over a day/5 days. Maybe over time this style of cricket will emerge to have new skills and new tactics. At this stage though, i'm not sure that it is that worth watching as "cricket."

However, there were over 50,000 people at domestic cricket matches over the weekend, and this can only be a good thing. If it brings people into the game, then all for the better.

Then again, AFL is the most watched sport in Australia, and look at how important and vital that is at an international level...

Rome wasn't built in a day.... If only 9 Australia understood that about TV

Rome. Ancient Rome. A place of sex, violence, politics and Drama. At least according to the HBO series.

This is a fantastic piece of television. Suspend your disbelief, your historical belief even more so, and you'll find one of the most lucious, funny, and beautifully conceived pieces of television ever made.

Sadly for Australians, who is the wonderful network that bought this fantastic show to screen on free to air for our public? None other than the late K.B.Packer's PBL owned Channel 9. So we in Australia can look forward to seeing it shown in prime time for a week or two, before it's chopped and changed around until it's eventually taken off until off ratings or simply never seen again.

Some of us still remember The West Wing Mr Packer Jr. And some of us now find other ways to watch our TV.

Watch this TV show. Just don't wait till Channel Nine Fucks it up for you...

Things to see.... and that's about it....

I'm back, and there's just so much to watch...

Sorry, I seem to have a dysfunctional love of extra full stops...

Coming off the nominations for this years Golden Globe awards (Yes Rob, i'm one of those people who keep an eye on these things. Give me another point on your nerdometor,) i just checked out a show that garnered 3 nominations, including best comedy series, and best actress for Mary Louise Parker. It's called Weeds.

If you thought Desperate Housewives was a biting satire of suburban lifestyles you couldn't have been any more wrong. This is to Housewives what Arrested Development is to King of Queens. ie it's Much Much Much Much better. Thought i'd just spell that out for the less initiated and edumacated.

Sadly though, it's shown on Showtime in the US. Fantastic for the fact that as a cable network they have more leway and less reliance on ratings. Shit for the fact that their website for some reason can't be accessed from my computer.

Find it and check it out.

On a short holiday

I'm on a short holiday at the moment.

When i get back from Adelaide i'll talk about Narnia, Cricket, and the sore point of Rome.

As a teaser a certain television network has bought the right s to show "Rome", one of the best of the US show last year. And sadly, it aint one of the good networks.

salu and Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

Kong - 8th Wonder of Cinema

It is strangely satisfying in this day and age to watch a piece of cinema that was created not for money, not for pleasure, not even necessarily for satisfaction, but simply because you love the subject so much. It is a well known story of the young peter jackson going to see the original King Kong and being inspired to be a film maker, and throughout the film it is blatantly evident how much he loves the great ape. The thing i came out of the 3 hours thinking though is whether or not passion alone can sustain a film.

The most obvious criticism of Kong is "it's long." And it is. At 3 hours it isn't the longest film ever, but at times it did feel like it. Perhaps Jackson's greatest fault is not culling some of this film down. There are large parts that could really do with being ct completely out of the film. However, you never feel that the director loses faith with the subject matter. Quite the opposite infact. I felt that he created the film simply because he loved the subject so damn much,

Naomi Watts is the shining light of this little dit. She manages to bring accross amazing ammounts of emotion in simple looks. This is a jewel of cinema, and she should be grasped with both hands.

Overall, a good film, well worth watching, but with flaws abbounding.

Good Night, and Good Luck

We know George Clooney as many things. Actor. Activist. But with his directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind he showed himself to have a great deal of skill as a director also. Whilst flawed in many ways, the story of Chuck Barris is a compelling tale of the corruption of fame and the drive to be something we are not. It is a film I hold in very high regard.

Clooney's penchant for biopics continues with Good Night, and Good Luck, his second film as a director. The story of Edward R Murrow and the CBS team that stood up to Joe McArthy in the 50s is just as compelling as Clooney's first film, and perhaps is less flawed overall. Shot wholly in black and white, Clooney makes use of historical newsreels and actual footage of the time and integrates it smoothly into his narrative. Whilst preachy at times, it is an important tale about what happens to society when fear takes over from common sense and civil liberties are thrown away because of it.

Clooney intersperses his narrative with some beautiful music from Diane Reeves singing some great 50s jazz. In my mind, whilst this was a great effect, it slowed the story a little too much. With one exception: a gorgeously framed close up of lead David Strathairn that he rests on for so long it's mesmerising. The historical footage is well placed, but sometimes too heavily relied on. Perhaps this is part of commentary of the film though. In this day and age where we get 40 second hits of news that is catered to entertain and sensationalise, it isn't hard to understand why I found it uncomfortable watching a 2 minute newsreel from the 50s.

The film has a lot to say, all of it profound, and it delivers it's message in an entertaining manner. At times I lost engagement, but I think it's a piece of cinema that will definately stand up to a second viewing. Check it out, especially for Straithairn's powerhouse performance.

VALE: John Spencer

A sad day for all fans of Television drama with the sudden passing of John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry in 7 seasons of "The West Wing," today.

One of the stand out greats of a stellar ensemble cast, Spencer always brought power to the screen and his presence will be sorely missed on the show, and in the acting world in general.

Best of luck wherever you are now. Be at peace knowing how you entertained many and the quality of your acting gave faith to those who had lost faith in the concept of good television.

And also for being in "The Rock," one of my great guilty pleasures.

Sick to my stomach

I never really wanted to use this blog to get political or make social commentary. There's many others out there to do this. I wanted to use it more to talk about things that inspire me.

But this needs comment. The violence that erupted in Sydney yesterday has stuck me in unimaginable ways. Is this the country i have lived in for 26 years? Violence. Fear. Racism. Intolerance. When did these become the way that people describe the relationships between Australians?

A lot of things are going to be said around our country over the next few weeks about these disgusting events. It's natural. We want to blame someone. We certainly don't want to blame ourselves. It's certainly not my fault.

And yet passing the buck and throwing around blame doesn't achieve anything. We need to understand the way this happened. These Australians, and they all are, are angry and afraid. Why? They have reacted with the only thing that society is leaving available. Violence.

Fixing this is not easy. How do we bring people together instead of splitting them apart.

Maybe reminding them that Iran has decided that the way to fix the Israel-Palestine conflict is to launch nukes at them. Maybe it's time we all started thinking about the things we have in common and not the things that tear us apart. It's got to be a start.

House - Watch This Show!

If you haven't seen Hugh Laurie as Dr Gregory House, and I still see George from Blackadder whenever I do, you really have to see this fantastic TV series.

The acerbic wit of the writing, matched by the cleverness of the directing, make this for incredible TV drama.

It is great to see more and more high class powerful actors going to TV in this day and age. It really allows them to craft and create wonderful characters that develop and evolve over time. You only have to look at The West Wing, The Sopranos and Arrested Development to see how well it works. Of course, Arrested Development is being cancelled, and I can't see another series of The West Wing next year, but hey, there's always reality TV.

A good film marathon

Sat down with a friend the other night and watched a couple of great films.

TV writer Paul Haggis's Crash is a fantastic early directorial outing. About the lives of a number of Las Angeles residents and how they each interact with each other over one day. This is a film about racism in America, and could at times feel like it's slipping into cliche, but I felt engaged throughout by his beautiful direction and clever writing. All of the characters are in some way un-redeemable, and yet they all redeem themselves in some way. A film that continued to surprise me throughout, wanting me to hate and then realising that the emotion is only self-destructive. As Australians we can look at a film like this and dismiss it as American racism and we don't experience stuff like that here, but to do so is dangerously naive. There's a little bit of racism in all of us, and we all have within us the potential to hurt and to heal. A wonderful film highly recommended.

Zach Braff's directorial and writing debut is a wonderfully imagined film called Garden State. Great performances by the three leads and wonderful support from Ian Holm, made for an incredibly engaging piece of cinema. I saw this at the cinemas when it came out last year, but watched it again with Blackers as he hadn't seen it before. I loved it then and still do now. My favourite thing is the way Braff builds his story. As his main character comes out of his anti-depressant numbness so does the film. Set off by a wonderful soundtrack, this is a special film about roots and friendship and how feeling pain is as important as feeling love.

So hire these couple of films. You won't regret it.

Harry's Back...

The fourth installment of JK Rowling's immensely popular books is out at cinemas now and I went and saw it with Hayley the other day.

I came out fairly disappointed. Goblet of Fire was my favourite books of the series so far, the two following it didn't do a great deal for me, and for me the film didn't manage to emulate the things which I enjoyed in the book. My favourite thing about the novel was how she moved the narrative away from Harry a little bit more and fleshed out other characters. Sadly, most of this was cut in the film, and so we got another Harry-centric outing.

My biggest problem with this is that the more we get to know Harry, the more I find him self-centered and annoying as a character. I understand that the book is a marathon and if they needed to cut large parts of the the first three books when they made those films, this one was going to suffer even more. But for a director that is all about characterisation, I didn't get the sense of involvement that I wanted. At the end when one of the characters dies, I got no sense of mourning or loss, because I simply didn't have any personal involvement with him. Newell hadn't let us get to know the character, so asking me to feel something was asking a bit much. Let alone asking me to believe that Harry felt something when he'd said barely 5 lines to him all film.

On the plus side the visuals remain beautifully created, and the world seems a little bit more deep in conception now.

Still, you can make something as pretty as you want, but it don't make it better.