Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, for me, is the be all and end all of science-fiction pictures. Adapted from Phillip K. Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Blade Runner's history is one of a legendarily troubled shoot, and egregious financial disappointment. However, like some other films that experienced such stressful and humble beginnings and ultimately grew in importance and popularity with each passing decade (like Citizen Kane, The Shawshank Redemption, The Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life), Blade Runner's esteem now with film critics and audiences alike shows that in 1982 it was simply a movie that was decades ahead of its time.
Blade Runner is as visually awe-inspiring a movie as you will ever see. Justifiably celebrated for its mesmerizing production design, Scott and his crew, also putting to work visual effects that don't show 26 years, paint a wrenching but no less aesthetically pleasing portrait of what maybe 2019 Los Angeles will look like: dystopic, polluted and brimming with corruption and corporate greed. You could only hope to see such amazing eye-candy from a director who is arguably one of the last true visionary directors (that now being a term which, it seems, is thrown around nearly as much these days in Hollywood circles as "You'll never work in this town again!").
But therein does not lie that magic ingredient that makes Blade Runner the seminal masterpiece of science-fiction film-making – that is in two other aspects of the story. The first of those is its ocean-deep and universal themes. Blade Runner is a movie that challenges the viewer to ponder not only what it means to be human, but WHY we are human. Through the central characters of Deckard (the central male whom we know more about than he knows of himself), played by Harrison Ford, Rachael (the female replicant and love interest of Deckard's who is the most advanced of her kind but still knows only mortality), played by Sean Young, and Roy Batty (the revengeful replicant who wages war on both Deckard and his own maker), played by Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner is a timeless, universal and marvelous analysis and deconstruction of the human condition in all its dimensions. And the characterizations by Ford, Young and most notably Hauer all leave indelible impressions.
Also broadening the narrative scope of the film is the mind-boggling fusion of postmodern cyberpunk and future neo-noir. This adds yet another layer of beauty and intrigue, especially in Vangelis' instantly recognizable score and with the cynical and introverted Deckard feeling much like a role Humphrey Bogart might have accepted.
The second definitive sign of Blade Runner's colossal greatness lies in its cautionary tale view of the future – and in 2009, unlike 1982, we all know how alarming the possibility of it successfully predicting the future is. After all, 2019 is only 10 years away. Pollution, slavery, prostitution, global warming, corruption. Technological enslavement? Think about that the next time you buy a piece of audiovisual equipment or even the next time you fire up your computer. Good sci-fi always tries to predict the future. Only the very best get it right.
In summary, you can throw 2001: A Space Odyssey or Metropolis or even The Matrix at me, but in my book, with its ageless eye-candy, its questions about life and human nature, and its gritty yet all-too-possible prediction of the future, Blade Runner is the definitive science-fiction movie of all time.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Review: Schindler's List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Oskar Schindler was not a good person in the strictest sense of the word. A member of the Nazi Party, he drank like a fish, gambled, conducted dealings on the black market and cheated on his wife innumerable times. Yet he found salvation by doing something so great even he could not comprehend its greatness: he changed himself for the greater good, saving the lives of more than 1100 Jews employed in his munitions factory from the hatred of the Nazi regime.
1993 was arguably the greatest year of Steven Spielberg's life. First he made the rip-roaring Jurassic Park, a still technologically astounding movie that revolutionized special effects and paid for his kids' educations for the next thirty years. But later, he presented us with Schindler's List, a film as remarkable as Schindler's achievement that beat nearly all other '90s historical dramas into submission and finally bagged him the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for which he had long been unfairly passed over. And if he still hadn't won it would have probably spawned conspiracy theories.
Spielberg has said that the filming of Schindler's List "was the most satisfying experience of my professional career," claiming it is the best film he has ever made. Even if I do say so myself, he's absolutely right. Working from Steven Zaillian's masterfully constructed adaptation of Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark, he elicits an outstanding performance from Liam Neeson as Schindler (who justifiably lost at the Oscars to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia), and Ralph Fiennes pulls off what is easily one of the scariest performances in cinema history as Amon Goeth, the SS commandant and director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau labor camp whose favourite pastime was using Jews for target practice.
However, this is unquestionably Spielberg's greatest directing job. Utilizing grainy black-and-white cinematography, Spielberg cleverly uses lots of wide panning shots and hand-held cameras to evoke just the right amount of shock and sympathy for Holocaust victims in each scene. Also, he seems to have realized that in order to completely nail a film of such depth and importance as this, you shouldn't even attempt to glamourize the Holocaust or answer the questions it has left in modern society. All you have to do is assess what happened and get the facts right.
In the production notes in the Schindler's List DVD, Spielberg writes: "No one can do anything to fix the past - that's already happened. But a picture like this can impact us, delivering a mandate about what must never happen again." Now I know the chances of you reading this are devastatingly low, but if you are, Mr. Spielberg, you need not worry because as a result of this powerhouse masterpiece you have single-handedly re-awakened awareness of the Holocaust, ensuring that it (hopefully) will never be repeated or forgotten. You are a god among giants, sir.
1993 was arguably the greatest year of Steven Spielberg's life. First he made the rip-roaring Jurassic Park, a still technologically astounding movie that revolutionized special effects and paid for his kids' educations for the next thirty years. But later, he presented us with Schindler's List, a film as remarkable as Schindler's achievement that beat nearly all other '90s historical dramas into submission and finally bagged him the Best Director and Best Picture Oscars for which he had long been unfairly passed over. And if he still hadn't won it would have probably spawned conspiracy theories.
Spielberg has said that the filming of Schindler's List "was the most satisfying experience of my professional career," claiming it is the best film he has ever made. Even if I do say so myself, he's absolutely right. Working from Steven Zaillian's masterfully constructed adaptation of Thomas Keneally's novel Schindler's Ark, he elicits an outstanding performance from Liam Neeson as Schindler (who justifiably lost at the Oscars to Tom Hanks in Philadelphia), and Ralph Fiennes pulls off what is easily one of the scariest performances in cinema history as Amon Goeth, the SS commandant and director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau labor camp whose favourite pastime was using Jews for target practice.
However, this is unquestionably Spielberg's greatest directing job. Utilizing grainy black-and-white cinematography, Spielberg cleverly uses lots of wide panning shots and hand-held cameras to evoke just the right amount of shock and sympathy for Holocaust victims in each scene. Also, he seems to have realized that in order to completely nail a film of such depth and importance as this, you shouldn't even attempt to glamourize the Holocaust or answer the questions it has left in modern society. All you have to do is assess what happened and get the facts right.
In the production notes in the Schindler's List DVD, Spielberg writes: "No one can do anything to fix the past - that's already happened. But a picture like this can impact us, delivering a mandate about what must never happen again." Now I know the chances of you reading this are devastatingly low, but if you are, Mr. Spielberg, you need not worry because as a result of this powerhouse masterpiece you have single-handedly re-awakened awareness of the Holocaust, ensuring that it (hopefully) will never be repeated or forgotten. You are a god among giants, sir.
Review: The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
Every once in a while, a film is released which revives its dead genre. In the early '90s, for the horror/thriller genre, The Silence of the Lambs was that film. After a tribe of awful horror flicks (e.g. 1988's Child's Play) with recycled story lines like serial killers hunting dumb teens, The Silence of the Lambs took the serial killer movie to a new level.
The Silence of the Lambs swept the 1991 Academy Awards, becoming only the third film in history - after 1934's It Happened One Night and 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - to win all five major categories (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay), and the first horror movie to win Best Picture. This is a tremendous achievement when it was released more than 12 months before, considering the Academy's notoriously short attention span. Each award was well deserved, with Best Director Jonathan Demme both marvellously pulling off the most gripping scenes and never losing sight of the human element of the picture, Best Actor Anthony Hopkins and Best Actress Jodie Foster both delivering unforgettable performances as the dangerously intelligent cannibal serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the less-than-perfect but strong willed rookie FBI Agent Clarice Starling, and Ted Tally's Best Adapted Screenplay both delivering snappy, quotable dialogue ("Oh, and Senator, one more thing: LOVE your suit!") and perfectly tapping into the mind of a serial killer.
This is the horror film that they all want to be, but almost all of them won't. I've only ever seen one other that is in quite the same league as this, and that is The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan must have watched TSOTL about 12 times while making that film). This groundbreaking masterpiece of horror is the standard by which all other horror movies are measured, and it is indeed the film that for which Hopkins, Foster and Demme will all be remembered.
10/10.
The Silence of the Lambs swept the 1991 Academy Awards, becoming only the third film in history - after 1934's It Happened One Night and 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - to win all five major categories (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay), and the first horror movie to win Best Picture. This is a tremendous achievement when it was released more than 12 months before, considering the Academy's notoriously short attention span. Each award was well deserved, with Best Director Jonathan Demme both marvellously pulling off the most gripping scenes and never losing sight of the human element of the picture, Best Actor Anthony Hopkins and Best Actress Jodie Foster both delivering unforgettable performances as the dangerously intelligent cannibal serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter and the less-than-perfect but strong willed rookie FBI Agent Clarice Starling, and Ted Tally's Best Adapted Screenplay both delivering snappy, quotable dialogue ("Oh, and Senator, one more thing: LOVE your suit!") and perfectly tapping into the mind of a serial killer.
This is the horror film that they all want to be, but almost all of them won't. I've only ever seen one other that is in quite the same league as this, and that is The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan must have watched TSOTL about 12 times while making that film). This groundbreaking masterpiece of horror is the standard by which all other horror movies are measured, and it is indeed the film that for which Hopkins, Foster and Demme will all be remembered.
10/10.
Review: Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir, 1989)
(NOTE: This one was written when I was 17 so it's a little out of date with my life now, but I'm still very proud of it)
About three months ago, this came on TV where I live at about 11.30 on a Saturday night (why it had to be on that late I have no idea). I taped it and watched it the next day and it's the only movie I've recently seen for the first time that really kicked me in the pants. About five days later I immediately bought the DVD. I was that blown away.
SPOILER ALERT!
It's 1959. Rebellious English professor John Keating (a wonderfully restrained, Oscar-nominated performance from Robin Williams, free of his usual quirks which are enjoyable but would be unnecessary here) arrives at Welton Academy, a posh all-boys school with an ages-old curriculum set in stone. Mr. Keating ignores the school's approved teaching methods, much to the dismay of Headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd), and instills in his students a love of poetry, inspiring them to ignore authority and make their lives extraordinary. This backfires when aspiring actor Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) commits suicide after his father (a role tailor-made for Kurtwood Smith, better known now for his identical but comic role as Red Forman in TV's "That '70s Show") forces him to become a doctor. Mr. Keating is blamed for this tragedy, and his remaining students stand up for him when he is threatened to be fired.
Dead Poets Society is a film about rebelling against authority. Mr. Keating is one of the great cinematic school teachers, and if he were real I'd give anything to be in his class. Williams is brilliant, but the real acting honours go to the actors playing the students, especially Leonard (who ironically now plays a doctor in TV's "House") and most notably a young Ethan Hawke, who delivers a tour de force performance as Todd Anderson, the student who is hit the hardest by Neil's death. Tom Schulman's glowing Oscar-winning screenplay is filled with less-than-perfect characters, a dash of much-needed humour, it avoids sentimentality and considering I often HATE poetry, it makes the stuff seem interesting.
However, it is Australian director Peter Weir's (who makes me, a budding filmmaker myself, proud to be an Australian) masterful handling of two key scenes late in the film which catapults it way beyond average status. The first is Neil Perry's suicide scene. Neil and his father have an argument one night after his father discovers Neil acting in a stage play. His father holds the power in the conversation and orders Neil to follow a career in medicine. Later on when his parents are asleep, Neil walks into his father's study, opens a drawer in the desk, takes out his father's revolver pistol and pulls the trigger. Weir wisely splashes this scene with dull and depressing colours (blacks and whites) to suit the mood described in Schulman's script, but instead of actually showing Neil pulling the trigger, Weir cuts away to Mr. Perry laying in his bed being awoken by the chilling sound of a gunshot downstairs. This makes my hair stand on end every time I watch the film.
The second is the exceptional climax. Now that Mr. Keating has been held responsible for Neil's death, he has been fired and interrupts his former class (now taught by Mr. Nolan) to get his things before he leaves. Todd Anderson causes an outburst and sticks up for Mr. Keating by standing on his desk and shouting "O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!" like Mr. Keating instructed his students. Soon half the class joins in, with Mr. Nolan shouting at them to all sit down. The class giving Mr. Keating a standing ovation shows how much one person can impact others' lives, either positively or negatively. In this case, Mr. Keating has given his students direction and a reason to live. It surely stands alongside One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as one of the most unforgettable movie climaxes ever. Damn you, Oliver Stone.
END OF SPOILERS!
If there are any teenagers like me out there who are reading this review and haven't yet seen this remarkable film, I urge you to do so. It could just change your life.
10/10.
About three months ago, this came on TV where I live at about 11.30 on a Saturday night (why it had to be on that late I have no idea). I taped it and watched it the next day and it's the only movie I've recently seen for the first time that really kicked me in the pants. About five days later I immediately bought the DVD. I was that blown away.
SPOILER ALERT!
It's 1959. Rebellious English professor John Keating (a wonderfully restrained, Oscar-nominated performance from Robin Williams, free of his usual quirks which are enjoyable but would be unnecessary here) arrives at Welton Academy, a posh all-boys school with an ages-old curriculum set in stone. Mr. Keating ignores the school's approved teaching methods, much to the dismay of Headmaster Mr. Nolan (Norman Lloyd), and instills in his students a love of poetry, inspiring them to ignore authority and make their lives extraordinary. This backfires when aspiring actor Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard) commits suicide after his father (a role tailor-made for Kurtwood Smith, better known now for his identical but comic role as Red Forman in TV's "That '70s Show") forces him to become a doctor. Mr. Keating is blamed for this tragedy, and his remaining students stand up for him when he is threatened to be fired.
Dead Poets Society is a film about rebelling against authority. Mr. Keating is one of the great cinematic school teachers, and if he were real I'd give anything to be in his class. Williams is brilliant, but the real acting honours go to the actors playing the students, especially Leonard (who ironically now plays a doctor in TV's "House") and most notably a young Ethan Hawke, who delivers a tour de force performance as Todd Anderson, the student who is hit the hardest by Neil's death. Tom Schulman's glowing Oscar-winning screenplay is filled with less-than-perfect characters, a dash of much-needed humour, it avoids sentimentality and considering I often HATE poetry, it makes the stuff seem interesting.
However, it is Australian director Peter Weir's (who makes me, a budding filmmaker myself, proud to be an Australian) masterful handling of two key scenes late in the film which catapults it way beyond average status. The first is Neil Perry's suicide scene. Neil and his father have an argument one night after his father discovers Neil acting in a stage play. His father holds the power in the conversation and orders Neil to follow a career in medicine. Later on when his parents are asleep, Neil walks into his father's study, opens a drawer in the desk, takes out his father's revolver pistol and pulls the trigger. Weir wisely splashes this scene with dull and depressing colours (blacks and whites) to suit the mood described in Schulman's script, but instead of actually showing Neil pulling the trigger, Weir cuts away to Mr. Perry laying in his bed being awoken by the chilling sound of a gunshot downstairs. This makes my hair stand on end every time I watch the film.
The second is the exceptional climax. Now that Mr. Keating has been held responsible for Neil's death, he has been fired and interrupts his former class (now taught by Mr. Nolan) to get his things before he leaves. Todd Anderson causes an outburst and sticks up for Mr. Keating by standing on his desk and shouting "O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN!" like Mr. Keating instructed his students. Soon half the class joins in, with Mr. Nolan shouting at them to all sit down. The class giving Mr. Keating a standing ovation shows how much one person can impact others' lives, either positively or negatively. In this case, Mr. Keating has given his students direction and a reason to live. It surely stands alongside One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back as one of the most unforgettable movie climaxes ever. Damn you, Oliver Stone.
END OF SPOILERS!
If there are any teenagers like me out there who are reading this review and haven't yet seen this remarkable film, I urge you to do so. It could just change your life.
10/10.
Review: Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985)
As you probably could've guessed from my username, Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future is one of those very special and rare movies that I would defend vehemently. One of the most inventive, adrenaline-pumping, amusing and eye-popping movies of all time, and one that's completely devoid of pretension, pomposity and self-consciousness, Back to the Future is a film that never fails to leave me feeling like I'm on Cloud Nine. Here's why.
The year is 1985. Rebellious Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, a last-minute replacement for Eric Stoltz, who failed to exude the laidback charm Zemeckis wanted the character to have) lives in the quaint (and fictional) Californian town of Hill Valley, where he has a beautiful and supportive girlfriend named Jennifer (played by Claudia Wells). Marty despairs of his alcoholic mother Lorraine and pushover father George (Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover) and thus spends most of his time hanging out with Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), a goofball scientist who, as it turns out, has just invented a DeLorean time machine (the time machine originally was intended to be a refrigerator, but Zemeckis changed it to a car because he worried that after seeing Marty walk through a refrigerator kids would follow suit). During a test run, however, Marty is accidentally sent back to 1955. Now, whilst trying to get back to the future, he encounters run-ins with his father's lifelong bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) and must somehow make sure his parents-to-be meet and fall in love – which is not as easy it sounds when Lorraine falls head over heels in love with him.
There is no department that makes a false move on this film. Firstly, the cast dynamic is flawless: Fox's Everyman affability has never been put to better use, Lloyd enjoys what is unquestionably the defining role of his career as the nutty scientist, Thompson and Glover revel in playing Marty's parents as teenagers and adults in middle-age, and Wilson brings menace and later even a little accurate lowliness to his role as the pathetic bully who finally gets his comeuppance. Technically, Back to the Future has aged like wine as well: the art direction is effective in its subtlety and accuracy to '50s culture, the editing is swift, but not to an extent that you can't make out everything that's happening on-screen, and although there aren't as many of them as you'd think given the type of film this is, the special effects are still superb by today's standards. Alan Silvestri's jazzy, electronic score is yet another element that raises the excitement enormously.
But at the end of the day, this really is Bob Zemeckis' show. Firstly he and Bob Gale co-wrote an ingenious screenplay so bursting with invention and peppered with sparkling humour (see the 1955 dinner scene, most notably) and heart that the years have done nothing to lessen the sense of wonder it brings. Secondly, his direction of Back to the Future is perfectly executed, especially for a blockbuster (and even I must admit to having a love/hate relationship with blockbusters sometimes): Zemeckis' directorial effort here is energetic, slick, cunning and fast-paced in the action scenes and cleverly subtle in the slower moments, his passion for the story apparent in every frame. Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, leave the blockbusters to the true masters and stop embarrassing yourselves.
Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future, one of the highest-grossing films of the '80s and a film that continues to have a huge impact on popular culture and film-making to this day, is a spectacular blockbuster that flawlessly combines dazzling and incredibly exciting action sequences with a sweet thematic centre that never ventures into cheesy territory, all the while being laced with wickedly funny humour. It's a film that, like very few of its contemporaries, has managed to avoid developing a negative reputation due to its large-scale success and continues to enchant new legions of young movie fans as well as remaining an all-time favourite of many older movie fans, and it will continue to do that for many years to come.
The year is 1985. Rebellious Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox, a last-minute replacement for Eric Stoltz, who failed to exude the laidback charm Zemeckis wanted the character to have) lives in the quaint (and fictional) Californian town of Hill Valley, where he has a beautiful and supportive girlfriend named Jennifer (played by Claudia Wells). Marty despairs of his alcoholic mother Lorraine and pushover father George (Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover) and thus spends most of his time hanging out with Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd), a goofball scientist who, as it turns out, has just invented a DeLorean time machine (the time machine originally was intended to be a refrigerator, but Zemeckis changed it to a car because he worried that after seeing Marty walk through a refrigerator kids would follow suit). During a test run, however, Marty is accidentally sent back to 1955. Now, whilst trying to get back to the future, he encounters run-ins with his father's lifelong bully Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) and must somehow make sure his parents-to-be meet and fall in love – which is not as easy it sounds when Lorraine falls head over heels in love with him.
There is no department that makes a false move on this film. Firstly, the cast dynamic is flawless: Fox's Everyman affability has never been put to better use, Lloyd enjoys what is unquestionably the defining role of his career as the nutty scientist, Thompson and Glover revel in playing Marty's parents as teenagers and adults in middle-age, and Wilson brings menace and later even a little accurate lowliness to his role as the pathetic bully who finally gets his comeuppance. Technically, Back to the Future has aged like wine as well: the art direction is effective in its subtlety and accuracy to '50s culture, the editing is swift, but not to an extent that you can't make out everything that's happening on-screen, and although there aren't as many of them as you'd think given the type of film this is, the special effects are still superb by today's standards. Alan Silvestri's jazzy, electronic score is yet another element that raises the excitement enormously.
But at the end of the day, this really is Bob Zemeckis' show. Firstly he and Bob Gale co-wrote an ingenious screenplay so bursting with invention and peppered with sparkling humour (see the 1955 dinner scene, most notably) and heart that the years have done nothing to lessen the sense of wonder it brings. Secondly, his direction of Back to the Future is perfectly executed, especially for a blockbuster (and even I must admit to having a love/hate relationship with blockbusters sometimes): Zemeckis' directorial effort here is energetic, slick, cunning and fast-paced in the action scenes and cleverly subtle in the slower moments, his passion for the story apparent in every frame. Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, leave the blockbusters to the true masters and stop embarrassing yourselves.
Robert Zemeckis' Back to the Future, one of the highest-grossing films of the '80s and a film that continues to have a huge impact on popular culture and film-making to this day, is a spectacular blockbuster that flawlessly combines dazzling and incredibly exciting action sequences with a sweet thematic centre that never ventures into cheesy territory, all the while being laced with wickedly funny humour. It's a film that, like very few of its contemporaries, has managed to avoid developing a negative reputation due to its large-scale success and continues to enchant new legions of young movie fans as well as remaining an all-time favourite of many older movie fans, and it will continue to do that for many years to come.
Review: The Lord of the Rings (Peter Jackson, 2001-2003).
Where does one start when putting Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings – a movie which has, in less than a decade, become almost unanimously hailed the world over as one of the most ambitious projects and one of THE definitive achievements in the entire long history of motion pictures – under the spotlight? Just as one cannot do justice to J. R. R. Tolkien’s staggering and immortal literary fantasy masterpiece in merely a few words, thus is also the case for Jackson’s unprecedented film adaptation. Because, with this operatic, timeless story of good triumphing over evil – with themes of love, sacrifice, redemption, mythology and corruption of power thrown in for good measure – Tolkien and Jackson each pulled off an extremely rare achievement in their respective mediums: they “built a church.” Furthermore Jackson single-handedly introduced virtually an entire generation – myself included – to the life’s work of Professor Tolkien. It is not impossible to do the film justice, but extremely few have fully done that, so I’ll do my best.
But before I attempt to navigate just how Jackson, who has referred to the making of The Lord of the Rings as “like laying down the train-tracks while the train was moving forward,” was so successful, I want to get something less important out of the way, and forgive me while I reminisce briefly.
I was fortunate enough to first see The Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen during its opening weekend in Australia in 2001 when I was 13, the perfect age for it. While I still to this day consider seeing Star Wars on the big screen at the age of nine when it was re-released in 1997 to be my fondest movie-going memory, that film only gets it over Fellowship in a photo-finish, and since the two are apples and oranges in terms of genre I still thought Fellowship was completely unlike anything I’d seen before. Witnessing the Fellowship crossing the Bridge of Khazad-dum followed by the showdown between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the Balrog was, and continues to be, the most awe-inspiring thing I’d seen since… well, the Death Star blowing up (and all those scenes still make my eyes light up like a pinball machine). And as soon as the lights in the cinema went up after the credits began to roll, virtually every person in the audience rose to their feet and started clapping and cheering. In all my movie-going experiences, that’s the only time I’ve been part of an audience that honoured a movie with a standing ovation at the end (perhaps with Star Wars in ’97 and The Two Towers and The Return of the King most of the audience knew what they were in for). Furthermore, and no doubt by some total fluke, Fellowship was released at just the PERFECT time. Of course, we all know and wish we could forget what happened in September of 2001 and it was not the movie’s huge worldwide box office taking but rather, the hugely positive and lasting impact it had, and continues to have, on so many people which proves that movies like Fellowship, when they’re done right and released at the right time, give people hope and inspiration. When we get those feelings from a film, as we do with real-life experiences, the film becomes a miracle. Feelings of hope and inspiration elicited from a movie are feelings that no one, neither the director nor the attendant behind the cinema concession stand, can give you, and nobody and nothing can ever take it away.
Okay, that’s that. Now for some deconstruction.
First, to the visual side of The Lord of the Rings. Visually, it is indeed ravishing in every sense of the word. Its scale and technological wonders make it heaven on your eyes, and in every frame there are so many beautiful things to look at that with every viewing you notice something there that you simply never noticed before (something that defines any true classic). The design is so richly detailed and by turns shimmeringly beautiful and powerfully arresting that you feel like you can just reach into the screen and touch the rainforest treetops of Rivendell or Lothlórien, or smell the gritty underbelly of the almost dystopic caverns of Isengard. Much of this is due to the many spectacular New Zealand locations on which the movie was filmed – indeed, Jackson’s choices of locations were so beneficial overall to New Zealand’s tourism industry that then-New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated, “Peter Jackson has done more for New Zealand’s tourism industry than any man since Captain Cook!”
Still on the visual aspect of The Lord of the Rings, overshadowing the sets and costumes are the indisputably awe-inspiring special effects. They have the same effect as the sets and costumes, however they overpower other technical aspects of the production when we learn there was much more at stake with the special effects. And the special effects are, it must be said, nothing less than special. In fact, what am I saying? To merely write them off as “special” is both an understatement and an injustice. It’s almost as if Peter Jackson has made a 3-D movie that you don’t need to watch while wearing those stupid glasses, to get the adrenaline rush that 3-D brings. The dragon firework; Frodo’s blurred and almost otherworldly vision when he puts on the One Ring; the dormant demon erupting out of Cate Blanchett’s Queen Galadriel when she sees the Ring; the river flooding Isengard to the ground; Mount Doom blowing its top and the tower of Orthanc collapsing to the ground, causing an earthquake after the destruction of the Ring; and the afore-mentioned showdown on the Bridge of Khazad-dum to name but a few. All become indelibly etched in your memory forever. And then there’s Gollum (played to sheer perfection by Andy Serkis), the first completely lifelike (if that’s the right adjective to use in relation to a non-human character) computer-generated character ever commited to celluloid. Gollum was the main reason as to just why the realism of the visuals in The Lord of the Rings was so critical to the outcome, especially in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, because he is the character through which the story’s moral of how power corrupts is delivered. Visually, The Lord of the Rings is, to put it lightly, a dream come true.
Another visual plus is Andrew Lesnie’s exhilarating cinematography – indeed, the effectiveness of the picturesque New Zealand locations in the overall look of the movie has a great deal to do with his camera and he deserved every gram of the Academy Award he won for Fellowship. Two photographic shots in the entire piece that never fail to leave me awestruck are the tracking shot of the butterfly hovering along the caverns of Isengard, then up and over the tower of Orthanc (despite that shot being mostly computer-generated) and the haunting mise-en-scene (following Arwen’s (Liv Tyler) vision of Aragorn’s (Viggo Mortensen) passing) of leaves floating over Aragorn’s casket to show the withering passage of time. Sublime.
Yet despite the size of what they have to compete with, the entire cast never misses a beat. Elijah Wood goes through the motions as Frodo for most of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, before Frodo goes renegade in the second half of The Return of the King, with Wood nailing a depiction of dependence and attachment to the Ring that is critical for the story’s message of corruption of power to come through. Andy Serkis chews up and spits Gollum back out with such ease that it seems Gollum was the role he was born to play. The same can be said for Ian McKellen, who had never even heard of Tolkien’s novel when Peter Jackson and co-screenwriter/producer Fran Walsh offered him the part of über-wizard Gandalf. Viggo Mortensen gives the somewhat arrogant Aragorn a refreshing mix of anger and vulnerability, Miranda Otto transforms a stock damsel in distress into one of the best action heroines in recent cinema history, and as father and son John Noble and Sean Bean each portray complex, almost deranged men who have succumbed to their shared susceptibility to power and greed so brilliantly you could be forgiven for mistaking Noble and Bean for an actual father and son pair.
However, in my opinion the actor who pulls the rug out from underneath everybody else here is Sean Astin. And in just one short scene. The expression on Astin’s face after Wood’s Frodo sends his Sam home in The Return of the King simply makes you want to, for a very short while, choke Frodo to death. How the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences snubbed this heartbreaking performance – and about three other performances in King – and granted only one acting nomination for the entire trilogy (but no disrespect at all to Mr. McKellen) is anyone’s guess. But of course, the only negative all the actors in the trilogy will get is being forever thought of as their characters, even if half have already managed to escape the typecasting. In the eyes of fans everywhere, Wood IS Frodo, McKellen IS Gandalf (despite his career-best performance in Gods and Monsters) and Mortensen IS Aragorn and so on, just like Mark Hamill IS Luke Skywalker, Sean Connery IS James Bond (that one’s probably not a negative though) and Harrison Ford IS Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Even after little more than eight years, the cultural impact of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings cannot and should not be underestimated. Jackson has made himself one of two prolific individuals – the other being J.K. Rowling – who have re-awoken children and teenagers of the twenty-first century to reading. After the release of just The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien’s works shot right back up to the top of bestseller lists worldwide. Jackson’s adaptations also slowly pulled the rug out from underneath the more-hyped Harry Potter movie adaptations, both critically and financially. The movie, along with J.K. Rowling’s Potter series and its own subsequent movie franchise for credit where it’s due, has given rise to endless merchandising and pieces of fan-fiction. But perhaps most of all to Jackson’s credit, he crafted a fantasy masterpiece so undeniably perfect, and with such passion and stubborn determination, that it eventually forced a bunch of fickle old men and women to get over their seventy-six year-long bias (even Steven Spielberg – who only shut the Academy up when he started to make serious films like the masterpieces Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan – and George Lucas can’t lay claim to that). To close, I can’t come up with a statement of my own with which I can do justice to Peter Jackson’s colossal adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in just one sentence, so as one critic wrote following The Return of the King’s December 2003 release, “Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
But before I attempt to navigate just how Jackson, who has referred to the making of The Lord of the Rings as “like laying down the train-tracks while the train was moving forward,” was so successful, I want to get something less important out of the way, and forgive me while I reminisce briefly.
I was fortunate enough to first see The Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen during its opening weekend in Australia in 2001 when I was 13, the perfect age for it. While I still to this day consider seeing Star Wars on the big screen at the age of nine when it was re-released in 1997 to be my fondest movie-going memory, that film only gets it over Fellowship in a photo-finish, and since the two are apples and oranges in terms of genre I still thought Fellowship was completely unlike anything I’d seen before. Witnessing the Fellowship crossing the Bridge of Khazad-dum followed by the showdown between Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the Balrog was, and continues to be, the most awe-inspiring thing I’d seen since… well, the Death Star blowing up (and all those scenes still make my eyes light up like a pinball machine). And as soon as the lights in the cinema went up after the credits began to roll, virtually every person in the audience rose to their feet and started clapping and cheering. In all my movie-going experiences, that’s the only time I’ve been part of an audience that honoured a movie with a standing ovation at the end (perhaps with Star Wars in ’97 and The Two Towers and The Return of the King most of the audience knew what they were in for). Furthermore, and no doubt by some total fluke, Fellowship was released at just the PERFECT time. Of course, we all know and wish we could forget what happened in September of 2001 and it was not the movie’s huge worldwide box office taking but rather, the hugely positive and lasting impact it had, and continues to have, on so many people which proves that movies like Fellowship, when they’re done right and released at the right time, give people hope and inspiration. When we get those feelings from a film, as we do with real-life experiences, the film becomes a miracle. Feelings of hope and inspiration elicited from a movie are feelings that no one, neither the director nor the attendant behind the cinema concession stand, can give you, and nobody and nothing can ever take it away.
Okay, that’s that. Now for some deconstruction.
First, to the visual side of The Lord of the Rings. Visually, it is indeed ravishing in every sense of the word. Its scale and technological wonders make it heaven on your eyes, and in every frame there are so many beautiful things to look at that with every viewing you notice something there that you simply never noticed before (something that defines any true classic). The design is so richly detailed and by turns shimmeringly beautiful and powerfully arresting that you feel like you can just reach into the screen and touch the rainforest treetops of Rivendell or Lothlórien, or smell the gritty underbelly of the almost dystopic caverns of Isengard. Much of this is due to the many spectacular New Zealand locations on which the movie was filmed – indeed, Jackson’s choices of locations were so beneficial overall to New Zealand’s tourism industry that then-New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated, “Peter Jackson has done more for New Zealand’s tourism industry than any man since Captain Cook!”
Still on the visual aspect of The Lord of the Rings, overshadowing the sets and costumes are the indisputably awe-inspiring special effects. They have the same effect as the sets and costumes, however they overpower other technical aspects of the production when we learn there was much more at stake with the special effects. And the special effects are, it must be said, nothing less than special. In fact, what am I saying? To merely write them off as “special” is both an understatement and an injustice. It’s almost as if Peter Jackson has made a 3-D movie that you don’t need to watch while wearing those stupid glasses, to get the adrenaline rush that 3-D brings. The dragon firework; Frodo’s blurred and almost otherworldly vision when he puts on the One Ring; the dormant demon erupting out of Cate Blanchett’s Queen Galadriel when she sees the Ring; the river flooding Isengard to the ground; Mount Doom blowing its top and the tower of Orthanc collapsing to the ground, causing an earthquake after the destruction of the Ring; and the afore-mentioned showdown on the Bridge of Khazad-dum to name but a few. All become indelibly etched in your memory forever. And then there’s Gollum (played to sheer perfection by Andy Serkis), the first completely lifelike (if that’s the right adjective to use in relation to a non-human character) computer-generated character ever commited to celluloid. Gollum was the main reason as to just why the realism of the visuals in The Lord of the Rings was so critical to the outcome, especially in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, because he is the character through which the story’s moral of how power corrupts is delivered. Visually, The Lord of the Rings is, to put it lightly, a dream come true.
Another visual plus is Andrew Lesnie’s exhilarating cinematography – indeed, the effectiveness of the picturesque New Zealand locations in the overall look of the movie has a great deal to do with his camera and he deserved every gram of the Academy Award he won for Fellowship. Two photographic shots in the entire piece that never fail to leave me awestruck are the tracking shot of the butterfly hovering along the caverns of Isengard, then up and over the tower of Orthanc (despite that shot being mostly computer-generated) and the haunting mise-en-scene (following Arwen’s (Liv Tyler) vision of Aragorn’s (Viggo Mortensen) passing) of leaves floating over Aragorn’s casket to show the withering passage of time. Sublime.
Yet despite the size of what they have to compete with, the entire cast never misses a beat. Elijah Wood goes through the motions as Frodo for most of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, before Frodo goes renegade in the second half of The Return of the King, with Wood nailing a depiction of dependence and attachment to the Ring that is critical for the story’s message of corruption of power to come through. Andy Serkis chews up and spits Gollum back out with such ease that it seems Gollum was the role he was born to play. The same can be said for Ian McKellen, who had never even heard of Tolkien’s novel when Peter Jackson and co-screenwriter/producer Fran Walsh offered him the part of über-wizard Gandalf. Viggo Mortensen gives the somewhat arrogant Aragorn a refreshing mix of anger and vulnerability, Miranda Otto transforms a stock damsel in distress into one of the best action heroines in recent cinema history, and as father and son John Noble and Sean Bean each portray complex, almost deranged men who have succumbed to their shared susceptibility to power and greed so brilliantly you could be forgiven for mistaking Noble and Bean for an actual father and son pair.
However, in my opinion the actor who pulls the rug out from underneath everybody else here is Sean Astin. And in just one short scene. The expression on Astin’s face after Wood’s Frodo sends his Sam home in The Return of the King simply makes you want to, for a very short while, choke Frodo to death. How the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences snubbed this heartbreaking performance – and about three other performances in King – and granted only one acting nomination for the entire trilogy (but no disrespect at all to Mr. McKellen) is anyone’s guess. But of course, the only negative all the actors in the trilogy will get is being forever thought of as their characters, even if half have already managed to escape the typecasting. In the eyes of fans everywhere, Wood IS Frodo, McKellen IS Gandalf (despite his career-best performance in Gods and Monsters) and Mortensen IS Aragorn and so on, just like Mark Hamill IS Luke Skywalker, Sean Connery IS James Bond (that one’s probably not a negative though) and Harrison Ford IS Han Solo and Indiana Jones.
Even after little more than eight years, the cultural impact of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings cannot and should not be underestimated. Jackson has made himself one of two prolific individuals – the other being J.K. Rowling – who have re-awoken children and teenagers of the twenty-first century to reading. After the release of just The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien’s works shot right back up to the top of bestseller lists worldwide. Jackson’s adaptations also slowly pulled the rug out from underneath the more-hyped Harry Potter movie adaptations, both critically and financially. The movie, along with J.K. Rowling’s Potter series and its own subsequent movie franchise for credit where it’s due, has given rise to endless merchandising and pieces of fan-fiction. But perhaps most of all to Jackson’s credit, he crafted a fantasy masterpiece so undeniably perfect, and with such passion and stubborn determination, that it eventually forced a bunch of fickle old men and women to get over their seventy-six year-long bias (even Steven Spielberg – who only shut the Academy up when he started to make serious films like the masterpieces Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan – and George Lucas can’t lay claim to that). To close, I can’t come up with a statement of my own with which I can do justice to Peter Jackson’s colossal adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in just one sentence, so as one critic wrote following The Return of the King’s December 2003 release, “Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
What I'd get up to on Fridays and Saturdays, with Oscar Buzzers.
This has no real plot; essentially it's just a loose chronicle of what I get up to on regular Fridays and Saturdays (I usually reserve Sundays for taking it easy, you see), but with my real-life friends replaced with some of you guys.
DISCLAIMER: Any negative depictions are in no way meant to be representative of the truth.
Friday, 11am. I’m about to go through the front entrance to my local town library to return some items when I see ESTEFAN coming out with some newly-borrowed books in his hands. I wave at him, and he notices me. “Oh hey, Jarred, what’s been happening?” he says to me. “Ah, just finishing off assessment, working, you know, the usual. What books did you get?” “Well, just these ones…” he holds them up to me. They’re The Complete History of the Walt Disney Company and the 2009 edition of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. “Fine picks, man, fine picks! You can always trust Maltin,” I say. “Oh absolutely. Well, Jarred, I’d love to chat, but unfortunately I’ve got a heap of study to do for next week, so I’ve gotta keep going. Sorry, Jarred.” “Hey don’t let me keep you!” I concede. We bid each other goodbye, and I venture into the library.
Once I’ve returned the two books and four CDs, I look at my watch, and realizing, I have time to kill, I decide to have a look through the collections for the millionth time. While I go around the aisles in the classical fiction section, I overhear two clearly well-read people having a discussion in the aisle in front of me about Austen and Dickens. Out of curiosity I peer through a gap between three books and they are AIDEN and MATT_THE_SCOT. I waltz around the corner to surprise them. “Hello, hello!” I say cheerfully. Aiden and Matt turn around. “Jarred! How are you!” Aiden exclaims. I tell her I’m fine, then ask her how she is. “What’s up?” Matt says to me, he and I shaking hands. An awkward silence ensues for about ten seconds, until I come up with an icebreaker: “What are you two doing here, besides, you know, finding stuff to read and listen to?” Aiden explains to me that she and Matt both arrived separately but they wound looking for stuff together after they learned they each have an appreciation for the classics (Aiden slightly more so). Matt asks me which author I prefer out of Austen and Dickens, but I say I don’t know because I’m not that cultured. After about ten minutes of talk, Matt politely leaves to avoid being late for work, and Aiden asks me if I’d like to have lunch with her at an up-market café which I’ve never been to. I oblige.
Not being as cultured as she at this café is not so confronting, however she does help me when I embarrass myself by struggling to pronounce the name of an exotic meal I like the sound of in front of the waiter as we order. Over lunch Aiden does most of the talking, and although many of the subjects she brings up are admittedly not overly interesting to me, her enthusiasm is engaging. In amongst this she tells me about a production of The Tempest happening tonight at the theatre in which she’s playing Miranda. I have no other plans so, as a show of solidarity, I tell her I’ll attend. After about an hour of conversation she has to leave for a dress rehearsal, and we each pay half the bill.
It’s now 12:30, and I walk along my local mall looking for things to do on my day off. I come across a busker, TYLER, playing a John Mayer cover on his guitar. I get out my wallet, take out a five-dollar note, toss it in his guitar case, put my wallet back in my pocket, kneel down in front of him, touch him on the shoulder and I say without any sarcasm, “Never stop chasing that dream, mate.”
As I go on walking through the mall, the first store that takes my interest is Jay Jays, a clothing store. I go in, and as I’m sorting through the men’s shirts on the $10 bargain table I see a familiar, like-minded guy doing the same. “KRENN?” “Jarred, how’s it goin’ dude?” he says, noticing me. “Well, I’ve got the day off work today so I’m just down here tryin’ to kill time, maybe buy some sh!t. You?” Krenn says he’s doing just that, too. In the women’s section on the other side of the store, Krenn and I both spot CARLEN and MARISA all on a shopping spree together. Both having picked out two outfits we like, we ask the girls to tell us if the clothes suit us, after we put them on in the changing rooms. Krenn’s first gets their approval, and my second one does. Mine is a black mesh shirt and dark green three-quarter pants. I decide to buy it, then the five of us go our separate ways.
Next I go to Sanity, a music and DVD store. As I look through the rock CD collection I turn around to find CHRIS and SONIA comparing and contrasting each other’s taste. Sonia notices me and calls out to me. I go up to them, say “Hello, how are things?” et cetera and they each ask me which of them has superior taste. I say, “Aw, geez, do I really have to choose? (pause) Sonia, you’ve got better taste in movies, but Chris, your taste in music trumps hers. I’m on the fence, guys.” For five minutes or so we have a similar discussion to the ones I just had with Krenn, Aiden and Matt, until once again we all have to keep going. Before I leave the store I go over to the manager, a very cool and knowledgeable guy named IBRAHIM, and ask if he has any copies of Help!. After doing a mainframe search he concludes he doesn’t so I put an order in for one, and as I leave I say, “Thanks, mate. Have a good one!”
That night, after the production of The Tempest, I meet back up with Aiden in the theatre foyer and I say she acted everyone else off the stage. She responds very fondly to this, but she says she can’t go out for the night because she has to rest and prepare for tomorrow night’s performance. I remind her here that I’m not trying to force her into anything. After five minutes of chatting, we each decide to part for now.
9:30pm. I meet up at the movies with BRIAN, MIKE and DUSTIN for a late screening of My Bloody Valentine. As it turns out, the film is about as scary as a litter of labrador puppies. However, instead of walking out, we each decide to stay for it all as we’ve already paid for it: Brian pretends to be asleep, Dustin plays with his phone, and Mike and I laugh at all the people in the theatre with us who scream. By the end, none of us apologize for picking the film because none of us want to admit to picking it. I ask them if they want to go out for drinks, but they all have to work in the morning. I respect that, so we bid each other goodbye.
Now, it’s 11:25pm, and as I’m walking back through the mall to the nearest bus stop, a person’s hands cover my eyes. I stand still. “Guess who!” the American voice says. I turn around, and it’s STARBUCKS. Happy to see him, I go, “’sup, dude!” We high-five each other. I notice he is wearing a black golfers’ cap on his head. “Ferris Bueller would approve, man,” I say. “Darn tootin’! That’s why I bought it!” he laughs exuberantly. “Say man, I’m on my own now and looks like you are too – wanna go get some coffee from my namesake?” I tell him I don’t drink coffee, but I could definitely go for some doughnuts. Half an hour later, he and I are sitting in Starbucks, he with a cup of coffee and I with a tray of iced doughnuts and a cup of tea. He mentions briefly how there are so few Starbucks outlets in Australia as opposed to America when suddenly PAT and his girlfriend enter and go over to the counter. They haven’t noticed us yet, so I lean over to Starbucks and whisper in his ear (in a mock Rick Springfield singing voice) “You know I wish that I had Patrick’s girl…” He chuckles understandingly. Pat and his girl now receive their order, and turning around to leave for the door they now notice us. They then go over to our table and greet us. For the next hour or so, the four of us sit there discussing alternative rock and the frustrations of dating from the perspectives of both genders. At around 1am, all of us feeling very tired, we bid each other goodbye and go our separate ways to get some shut-eye.
Saturday, 11am. I arrive at the beach where I meet up with MATTY, KIM and his girlfriend. After an hour-long swim followed by lunch, Kim and his girl understandably want some time to themselves, so Matty and I decide to have a look around the nearby rockpools. We get to the top of a five-metre high rock wall, when we see a lone figure sitting there like a statue on the edge of the cliff, presumably just taking in the scenery. “MITCH?” I ask. Without facing us, he simply says, “Hello. (long pause) I love this spot. It’s so utterly serene… so unspoilt.” Matty asks, “Been for a swim yet, mate?” Mitch says no, there are too many people down there. “Ah don’t be so antisocial, it’ll be good for ya, trust me!” Matty says encouragingly. After Matty and I nag and nag him for a few minutes, he relents, and joins us on the beach. After another swim, we all come together for numerous games of beach volleyball. By now it’s 4pm, the lifesavers are closing up and we all decide we’ve spent enough time in the sun for one day.
That night, at 7pm, I arrive at the pub, where I meet JOSH, ROBIN, EOGHAN, NATE and MATTY again. I tell them they’re in my neck of the woods now, so it’s my shout. We enter to find WAGGY and TYLOSAUR on stage as a comedy duo doing a gig. Some of the audience members are crying with laughter. We order dinner for ourselves and form a group for the pub trivia contest. With our combined brain power and competitive streaks, we easily blitz the field. After that, we all go wild: Josh and Nate tear up the dancefloor, Eoghan works the karaoke machine, Matty and Robin verse each other in dozens of games of pool and pinball, and I alternate between all these activities.
At midnight, we decide to move on to the nightclub down the street. Whilst going there, we pass a Subway outlet across the street. I tell the others I’m going to get some cookies for a midnight snack. As I leave the store with my cookies, I see ERIC sitting by himself at one of the sets of tables and chairs with a large drink, reading the newspaper. He looks like he wants company so I go and sit across from him. “Eric! Why so downbeat all the time?” For the next few minutes he rants about societal problems like homelessness, prostitution, and drug and alchol abuse until I interrupt him with, “Eric, me and the guys are hitting the clubs right now. Why don’t you join us?” “He says, “That’s exactly what I was waiting for you to say.” We get up, leave and rejoin the others.
Twenty minutes later, we finally get in to the club. The song currently playing is Billie Jean. As we enter the main party room, a familiar-looking guy is getting down on the dancefloor: ALL_ABOUT_DAVE. I shout out his name so he notices me, and when he does he walks over to me and we high-five each other. Then, we verse each other in a dance-off, however we decide to end it after one song because we’re both so drunk that we keep crashing into each other. For the next four hours, the eight of us sit in the main bar lounge upstairs and engage in a long discussion about everything from our favourite shows as kids to our most guilty film and music pleasures. Now it’s Sunday, 4am. The club is closing, so we all finally bid each other goodbye and head home. Once I get back to my place, I open the front door, go in, go into the kitchen to get an ice-cream bucket just in case, go down the hallway to my room, and I crash onto my bed. Content with the activities of the last two days, I’m out like a light.
DISCLAIMER: Any negative depictions are in no way meant to be representative of the truth.
Friday, 11am. I’m about to go through the front entrance to my local town library to return some items when I see ESTEFAN coming out with some newly-borrowed books in his hands. I wave at him, and he notices me. “Oh hey, Jarred, what’s been happening?” he says to me. “Ah, just finishing off assessment, working, you know, the usual. What books did you get?” “Well, just these ones…” he holds them up to me. They’re The Complete History of the Walt Disney Company and the 2009 edition of Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide. “Fine picks, man, fine picks! You can always trust Maltin,” I say. “Oh absolutely. Well, Jarred, I’d love to chat, but unfortunately I’ve got a heap of study to do for next week, so I’ve gotta keep going. Sorry, Jarred.” “Hey don’t let me keep you!” I concede. We bid each other goodbye, and I venture into the library.
Once I’ve returned the two books and four CDs, I look at my watch, and realizing, I have time to kill, I decide to have a look through the collections for the millionth time. While I go around the aisles in the classical fiction section, I overhear two clearly well-read people having a discussion in the aisle in front of me about Austen and Dickens. Out of curiosity I peer through a gap between three books and they are AIDEN and MATT_THE_SCOT. I waltz around the corner to surprise them. “Hello, hello!” I say cheerfully. Aiden and Matt turn around. “Jarred! How are you!” Aiden exclaims. I tell her I’m fine, then ask her how she is. “What’s up?” Matt says to me, he and I shaking hands. An awkward silence ensues for about ten seconds, until I come up with an icebreaker: “What are you two doing here, besides, you know, finding stuff to read and listen to?” Aiden explains to me that she and Matt both arrived separately but they wound looking for stuff together after they learned they each have an appreciation for the classics (Aiden slightly more so). Matt asks me which author I prefer out of Austen and Dickens, but I say I don’t know because I’m not that cultured. After about ten minutes of talk, Matt politely leaves to avoid being late for work, and Aiden asks me if I’d like to have lunch with her at an up-market café which I’ve never been to. I oblige.
Not being as cultured as she at this café is not so confronting, however she does help me when I embarrass myself by struggling to pronounce the name of an exotic meal I like the sound of in front of the waiter as we order. Over lunch Aiden does most of the talking, and although many of the subjects she brings up are admittedly not overly interesting to me, her enthusiasm is engaging. In amongst this she tells me about a production of The Tempest happening tonight at the theatre in which she’s playing Miranda. I have no other plans so, as a show of solidarity, I tell her I’ll attend. After about an hour of conversation she has to leave for a dress rehearsal, and we each pay half the bill.
It’s now 12:30, and I walk along my local mall looking for things to do on my day off. I come across a busker, TYLER, playing a John Mayer cover on his guitar. I get out my wallet, take out a five-dollar note, toss it in his guitar case, put my wallet back in my pocket, kneel down in front of him, touch him on the shoulder and I say without any sarcasm, “Never stop chasing that dream, mate.”
As I go on walking through the mall, the first store that takes my interest is Jay Jays, a clothing store. I go in, and as I’m sorting through the men’s shirts on the $10 bargain table I see a familiar, like-minded guy doing the same. “KRENN?” “Jarred, how’s it goin’ dude?” he says, noticing me. “Well, I’ve got the day off work today so I’m just down here tryin’ to kill time, maybe buy some sh!t. You?” Krenn says he’s doing just that, too. In the women’s section on the other side of the store, Krenn and I both spot CARLEN and MARISA all on a shopping spree together. Both having picked out two outfits we like, we ask the girls to tell us if the clothes suit us, after we put them on in the changing rooms. Krenn’s first gets their approval, and my second one does. Mine is a black mesh shirt and dark green three-quarter pants. I decide to buy it, then the five of us go our separate ways.
Next I go to Sanity, a music and DVD store. As I look through the rock CD collection I turn around to find CHRIS and SONIA comparing and contrasting each other’s taste. Sonia notices me and calls out to me. I go up to them, say “Hello, how are things?” et cetera and they each ask me which of them has superior taste. I say, “Aw, geez, do I really have to choose? (pause) Sonia, you’ve got better taste in movies, but Chris, your taste in music trumps hers. I’m on the fence, guys.” For five minutes or so we have a similar discussion to the ones I just had with Krenn, Aiden and Matt, until once again we all have to keep going. Before I leave the store I go over to the manager, a very cool and knowledgeable guy named IBRAHIM, and ask if he has any copies of Help!. After doing a mainframe search he concludes he doesn’t so I put an order in for one, and as I leave I say, “Thanks, mate. Have a good one!”
That night, after the production of The Tempest, I meet back up with Aiden in the theatre foyer and I say she acted everyone else off the stage. She responds very fondly to this, but she says she can’t go out for the night because she has to rest and prepare for tomorrow night’s performance. I remind her here that I’m not trying to force her into anything. After five minutes of chatting, we each decide to part for now.
9:30pm. I meet up at the movies with BRIAN, MIKE and DUSTIN for a late screening of My Bloody Valentine. As it turns out, the film is about as scary as a litter of labrador puppies. However, instead of walking out, we each decide to stay for it all as we’ve already paid for it: Brian pretends to be asleep, Dustin plays with his phone, and Mike and I laugh at all the people in the theatre with us who scream. By the end, none of us apologize for picking the film because none of us want to admit to picking it. I ask them if they want to go out for drinks, but they all have to work in the morning. I respect that, so we bid each other goodbye.
Now, it’s 11:25pm, and as I’m walking back through the mall to the nearest bus stop, a person’s hands cover my eyes. I stand still. “Guess who!” the American voice says. I turn around, and it’s STARBUCKS. Happy to see him, I go, “’sup, dude!” We high-five each other. I notice he is wearing a black golfers’ cap on his head. “Ferris Bueller would approve, man,” I say. “Darn tootin’! That’s why I bought it!” he laughs exuberantly. “Say man, I’m on my own now and looks like you are too – wanna go get some coffee from my namesake?” I tell him I don’t drink coffee, but I could definitely go for some doughnuts. Half an hour later, he and I are sitting in Starbucks, he with a cup of coffee and I with a tray of iced doughnuts and a cup of tea. He mentions briefly how there are so few Starbucks outlets in Australia as opposed to America when suddenly PAT and his girlfriend enter and go over to the counter. They haven’t noticed us yet, so I lean over to Starbucks and whisper in his ear (in a mock Rick Springfield singing voice) “You know I wish that I had Patrick’s girl…” He chuckles understandingly. Pat and his girl now receive their order, and turning around to leave for the door they now notice us. They then go over to our table and greet us. For the next hour or so, the four of us sit there discussing alternative rock and the frustrations of dating from the perspectives of both genders. At around 1am, all of us feeling very tired, we bid each other goodbye and go our separate ways to get some shut-eye.
Saturday, 11am. I arrive at the beach where I meet up with MATTY, KIM and his girlfriend. After an hour-long swim followed by lunch, Kim and his girl understandably want some time to themselves, so Matty and I decide to have a look around the nearby rockpools. We get to the top of a five-metre high rock wall, when we see a lone figure sitting there like a statue on the edge of the cliff, presumably just taking in the scenery. “MITCH?” I ask. Without facing us, he simply says, “Hello. (long pause) I love this spot. It’s so utterly serene… so unspoilt.” Matty asks, “Been for a swim yet, mate?” Mitch says no, there are too many people down there. “Ah don’t be so antisocial, it’ll be good for ya, trust me!” Matty says encouragingly. After Matty and I nag and nag him for a few minutes, he relents, and joins us on the beach. After another swim, we all come together for numerous games of beach volleyball. By now it’s 4pm, the lifesavers are closing up and we all decide we’ve spent enough time in the sun for one day.
That night, at 7pm, I arrive at the pub, where I meet JOSH, ROBIN, EOGHAN, NATE and MATTY again. I tell them they’re in my neck of the woods now, so it’s my shout. We enter to find WAGGY and TYLOSAUR on stage as a comedy duo doing a gig. Some of the audience members are crying with laughter. We order dinner for ourselves and form a group for the pub trivia contest. With our combined brain power and competitive streaks, we easily blitz the field. After that, we all go wild: Josh and Nate tear up the dancefloor, Eoghan works the karaoke machine, Matty and Robin verse each other in dozens of games of pool and pinball, and I alternate between all these activities.
At midnight, we decide to move on to the nightclub down the street. Whilst going there, we pass a Subway outlet across the street. I tell the others I’m going to get some cookies for a midnight snack. As I leave the store with my cookies, I see ERIC sitting by himself at one of the sets of tables and chairs with a large drink, reading the newspaper. He looks like he wants company so I go and sit across from him. “Eric! Why so downbeat all the time?” For the next few minutes he rants about societal problems like homelessness, prostitution, and drug and alchol abuse until I interrupt him with, “Eric, me and the guys are hitting the clubs right now. Why don’t you join us?” “He says, “That’s exactly what I was waiting for you to say.” We get up, leave and rejoin the others.
Twenty minutes later, we finally get in to the club. The song currently playing is Billie Jean. As we enter the main party room, a familiar-looking guy is getting down on the dancefloor: ALL_ABOUT_DAVE. I shout out his name so he notices me, and when he does he walks over to me and we high-five each other. Then, we verse each other in a dance-off, however we decide to end it after one song because we’re both so drunk that we keep crashing into each other. For the next four hours, the eight of us sit in the main bar lounge upstairs and engage in a long discussion about everything from our favourite shows as kids to our most guilty film and music pleasures. Now it’s Sunday, 4am. The club is closing, so we all finally bid each other goodbye and head home. Once I get back to my place, I open the front door, go in, go into the kitchen to get an ice-cream bucket just in case, go down the hallway to my room, and I crash onto my bed. Content with the activities of the last two days, I’m out like a light.
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