Saturday, June 5, 2010

ONE HIT WONDERS … BIG COUNTRY

ONE HIT WONDERS …

BIG COUNTRY

00000044

Artist: Big Country
Song: In a Big Country
Year: 1983

In the early 1980's, Big Country arrived as one of the promising new rock bands, and reaped much success from the debut album, The Crossing. While the band faded commercially and critically, it endured longer than its contemporaries, and released new music into the next century.

The band released The Crossing in the spring of 1983. In the UK, the album went platinum. In America, the album went gold. Its success coasted on the Top 20 pop hit "In a Big Country."

 

MOVIE REVIEW … ANIMAL KINGDOM

MOVIE REVIEW …

ANIMAL KINGDOM


12.indd Animal Kingdom is the latest in a long line of Australian productions exploring the dodgy dealings of criminals.  It could almost be called an exploitation film as it rides on the coat-tails of the various crime related shows clogging television screens.  Whether audiences want to pay what they already see for free is another question, although it thrives due to its performances.  It’s this quality which distinguishes itself from the many dramas extending their fifteen minutes of infamy.

2010_animal_kingdom_009

After his mother dies, Josh (James Frecheville) is sent to live with his grandmother Janine (Jacki Weaver).   With her are sons Andrew (Ben Mendelsohn), Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) and Darren (Luke Ford).  All are part of drug trafficking gang which includes Andrew’s friend Barry (Joel Edgerton).  When one of them is brutally slain, the tensions between them and the police ignite.  Waiting to pounce is senior homicide detective Nathan (Guy Pearce) who looks to Josh to unfurl the crooked familial dynamics.  With opposing sides at war, Josh’s new life threatens to tear asunder from the animalistic nature of gang warfare.

2010_animal_kingdom_012 Written and directed by David Michod, Animal Kingdom attempts to add to a heavily saturated genre.  In some ways a risky move as one would assume everything has already been told.  However he brings offers something new in examining the structure of a crime family who exist in a vacuum of mistrust and violence.  This is keenly felt with Andrew whose motivations are driven by the next deal and what his family can do for him.  In Josh he sees a potential new acolyte to his ways with their family ties creating an instant connection.  These elements are well conveyed by a mostly strong cast and involving script despite Michod's lacklustre direction.

2010_animal_kingdom_019 Very little tension is created due to his low key approach as the story demands a more dramatic touch.  Where there should be thumping urgency is replaced by slow pacing.  This miscue is matched by Frecheville's performance which is less than memorable.  His wooden delivery of lines almost derails Mendelsohn's and Weaver's sublime work. It's very difficult following a central character rendered so ineffectively where a more experienced hand would have been better.  Despite these less than pleasing aspects, the screenplay's strengths manage to surface as its' compelling tale reaches an unexpected conclusion

2010_animal_kingdom_007

Although copying a template used dozens of times, Animal Kingdom feels fresh.  If the material hadn't been so mis-handled it could have been a winner, although as is it's still diverting enough to over-shadow memories of more expensive but less engaging crime dramas.

2010_animal_kingdom_017

Movie Review Rating  6 / 10

Movie Review by Patrick Moore

If you have any comments to make about this Movie Review, then please use the comment box, titling your comments with Movie Review Animal Kingdom

Patrick Moore's Movie Review is an alternative look at current movie releases in Australia.

Official HomePage click HERE

MOVIE REVIEW ... SEX AND THE CITY 2

MOVIE REVIEW ...

SEX AND THE CITY 2

 

sex-and-the-city-2-movie-poster-1020548149 The danger of any long running series is the possibility of becoming a shade of its former self.  With its’ glory days behind it, all that’s left is to become a parody of what it once was.  Sex and the City 2 sinks into a sea of mediocrity.  The fabulous glamour is still evident, but gone are the involving incidents which made the show engaging.  Naturally no matter what any reviewer says fans will flock to it in droves, although the chances of watching the characters they first fell in love with seem remote resembling a worn-out edge of the ladies sparkly high heel shoes.

sex-and-the-city-2-movie-poster-1020546859

Two years after finally marrying Big (Chris Noth), Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) thinks her marriage has hit a rough patch.  With Big preferring quiet nights in than going out on the town, she wonders where her days as a free wheeling party girl went.  Salvation arrives when Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is offered an all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi by an Arabian businessman.  Tasked with devising a PR campaign, she ropes in Carrie, Charlotte (Kristen Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) on a holiday promising a clash between cultures where mystery and romance offer surprises for the fashionable foursome.

sex-and-the-city-2-movie-poster-1020546856

Sex and the City’s first cinematic foray was a hit due to its accessibility.  The scope of its story-lines and catering to a general audience saw it reach stratospheric box office heights.  The same can’t be said for its second outing as it disregards what made the first so successful.  After a first half setting stories involving Carrie’s marriage, Miranda’s workplace dramas and Charlotte’s ability to cope with a growing family, it inexplicably throws these away for a frivolous second half resulting in little consequence.  It’s very disappointing writer/director Michael Patrick King took this lazy route as the first section has far more interesting possibilities.

sex-and-the-city-2-movie-poster-1020546855

As soon as the women jet into the Middle East it turns into an endless fashion parade with very little story to sustain it.  Whilst taking them out of New York and away from their other halves could be seen as a return to its early TV season roots, the idea prevents them from progressing as characters.  This holding pattern affects the film’s flow as it scrambles to find a reason for its various hijinks.  The opening sequences are much more successful with a musical number by Liza Minnelli beginning events in spectacular fashion.  Sadly it’s all down-hill from there as the only other redeeming features are the photography and the production design successfully showing the opulence of Abu Dhabi and the film’s extravagant budget.

sex-and-the-city-2-movie-poster-1020546843

With news the third film will be a prequel featuring a younger cast, it seems Sex and the City 2 is the old gang’s last hurrah.  Which is just as well given its’ mediocre efforts at entertainment with little offered for more casual viewers to enjoy  Fans will lap it up no matter the quality although it’s probably time Carrie and co departed with the graceful style this film studiously lacks.

Movie Review Rating 3 / 10

Movie Review by Patrick Moore

Sex and the City 2 released in Australia on Thursday 3 June 2010.

If you have any comments to make about this Movie Review, then please use the comment box, titling your comments with Movie Review Sex and the City 2

Patrick Moore's Movie Review is an alternative look at current movie releases in Australia.

Official HomePage click HERE

 

MOVIE NEWS … GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

MOVIE NEWS …

GULLIVER’S TRAVELS

Classic story Gulliver’s Travels is to be given the Jack Black treatment and in 3D.

Reportedly Gulliver’s Travels, starring Black and Emily Blunt, will be released around Christmas 2010.

Here’s the first poster to be released.

gullivers_travels_poster_01 

And for good measure – the trailer

 

REMINISCING … GENE TIERNEY

REMINISCING …

GENE TIERNEY

geneicon 

Gene  Tierney  was an American film and stage actress.

gene-tierney-7

Acclaimed as one of the great beauties of her day, she is best-remembered for her performance in the title role of Laura (1944) and her Academy Award-nominated performance for Best Actress in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

ZG4ED00Z

Other notable roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait (1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge (1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season (1951) and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955).

In 1944, she starred in what became her most famous role - the intended murder victim, Laura Hunt, in Otto Preminger's mystery film Laura, opposite Dana Andrews.

laura_ver4

After playing Tina Tomasino in A Bell for Adano (1945), she played the jealous, narcissistic femme fatale Ellen Berent Harland, opposite Cornel Wilde, in the film version of the best-selling book Leave Her to Heaven, a performance that won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress (1945). Leave Her To Heaven was 20th Century-Fox's most successful film of the 1940s

leave_her_to_heaven

genetiernyeadadfad1

MOVIE NEWS … THREE MEN AND A BABY 3

MOVIE NEWS …

THREE MEN AND A BABY 3

zz22c46cbe

Tom Selleck says the wheels might be finally turning on the long-gestating - the project has been in development for the better part of fifteen years! - second sequel to "Three Men and a Baby" which, according to a 1993 issue of TV Week, was said to be titled "Three Men and a Bride" - and still might be.

Selleck, out pimping his new film "Killers" (directed by Australia's Robert Luketic), confirmed Steve Guttenberg's recent comments that the movie, which would reunite Selleck, Guttenberg and Ted Danson (and assumingly, Nancy Travis), may finally be coming to fruition.

"It is true that Disney checked my availability," Selleck tells MTV Movies Blog. "And I know they checked Ted's and Steve's, and then had a script written, I think tentatively called 'Three Men and a Bride,' which kind of says it all [about the story]."

Selleck says he'd be happy to lend his moustache to the film.

"I hope it's a good script, and if it is a good script I hope they do it, because it would be really fun to get back with Ted and Steve," he said. "The strongest of the two movies I think is the first one. It had more heart, and that's what I hope this third one would have if we do it."

QUOTABLES … JAKE GYLLENHAAL

QUOTABLES …

 

JAKE GYLLENHAAL

jake-gyllenhaal1

"The Jake Gyllenhaal workout plan…starts with growing long, long hair…gorgeous greasy locks and then washing every day….Wash, shampoo, then condition. Washing works the biceps and then the triceps by conditioning. And vigorously rubbing all of your body with soap really defines the abs and the pectoral muscles. And if you do squats while you're bathing – that's it!"

Jake Gyllenhaal, joking with Entertainment Tonight Canada about his super-buff Prince of Persia look.

TRIVIA BITS ... ROSE COLOURS

TRIVIA BITS ...

ROSE COLOURS

When you give someone roses, the colour can have a meaning.

The meaning of rose colours:

Red = Love and respect

red_roses_in_black-1

Deep pink = Gratitude, appreciation

deep-pink-rose

Light pink = Admiration, sympathy

light_pink_rose_01

White = Reverence, humility

WHITE ROSE

Yellow = Joy, gladness

YELLOW ROSE

Orange = Enthusiasm, desire

orange-rose-side-on-black3

Red & Yellow blend = Gaiety, joviality

yellow-orange-roses-macro

Pale blended tones = Sociability, friendship

PALE

Friday, June 4, 2010

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS … RUE TRIBUTE FROM BETTY

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS …

RUE TRIBUTE

FROM BETTY

rue_mcclanahan_1910038

She's now the last living Golden Girl. For Betty White the loss of her co-star Rue McClanahan struck hard.


"Rue was a close and dear friend. I treasure our relationship," White, 88, said in a statement. "It hurts more than I ever thought it would, if that's even possible." -Betty White

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS …. RUE MCCLANAHAN PASSES

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS ….

RUE MCCLANAHAN

PASSES

sadnessrueimsad

Golden Girl Rue McClanahan has died at the age of 76.

"She passed away at 1 a.m. this morning," her manager, Barbara Lawrence, tells PEOPLE. "She had a massive stroke."

McClanahan, who played man-happy Blanche Devereaux on the still-popular '80s sitcom Golden Girls, had suffered a minor stroke earlier this year while recovering from bypass surgery. Lawrence also said that at the time of her death Thursday, McClanahan "had her family with her. She went in peace."

Still in syndication, Golden Girls ran on NBC from 1985 to 1992. Only last year, McClanahan's costar, Beatrice Arthur, died from cancer. Estelle Getty died in 2008. Surviving star Betty White, 88, is currently enjoying a remarkable resurgence in her career, having recently hosted Saturday Night Live.

Born in Healdton, Okla., Rue lived in six towns by the time she was 8. Her father was a road builder who moved from one project to another. She found solace in acting ("the only thing I ever wanted to do") and after four years at the University of Tulsa moved to New York, where she worked as a part-time file clerk while trying to find jobs in the theater.

Her first job was off Broadway, in 1957, and she finally hit Broadway in 1969. TV work came from soap operas, until she made it on CBS's Maude, starring Beatrice Arthur, starting in 1972. She played Maude's best friend Vivian. But it was Golden Girls that put her on the map and led to fame fortune - and several husbands. In all, had six, including actor Morrow Wilson, whom she wed in 1997 and who survives her, as does a son, Mark Bish, from her first marriage.

As McClanahan told PEOPLE in 1986: "I've always been lucky enough to marry good cooks. One cooked Greek. One cooked Tex-Mex - chili and stuff." Then, with a laugh, she added, "True, one needed a recipe to make a peanut butter sandwich ..."

TRIVIA BITS … ESTIMATED IQ OF PEOPLE PAST

TRIVIA BITS …

ESTIMATED IQ OF PEOPLE PAST

George Washington 118

George Washington

Napoleon Bonaparte 145

napoleon-bonaparte

Captain James Cook 160

james-cook1776

Albert Einstein 160

albert-einstein

Charles Darwin 165

charles-darwin

Dr David Livingstone 170

david_livingstone[1]

Charles Dickens 180

charles_dickens_1858

Michelangelo 180

e_michelangelo1

Sir Isaac Newton 190

sir_isaac_newton_1702

Leondardo da Vinci 220

Leonardo_da_Vinci_000

QUOTABLES … JENNIFER ANISTON

QUOTABLES …

JENNIFER ANISTON

jennifer-aniston1

"Sorry, but the last time I had baby food, I believe I was 1. I've been on solids for about 40 years now." –

Jennifer Aniston, denying reports that she was on "The Baby Food Cleanse," to PEOPLE.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

QUOTABLES

QUOTABLES ...

victorborge

Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.

Victor Borge

THIS WORLD ... SECLUDED HOUSES

THIS WORLD ...

SECLUDED HOUSES

Great photos of incredibly secluded houses which sets deep remotely into places where there doesn’t seem to have any ease of communications and transport. Unsure whether anyone dwells  in these houses but they do seem great to live where we could get away from the pollution of city life.

secluded-house

secluded-house1

secluded-house2

161.tif

140107.TIF

secluded-house5

secluded-house6

ILE

secluded-house8

secluded-house9

secluded-house10