Sunday, May 26, 2002
What a difference a week makes
Sunday
Was quite productive: cleaned, returned borrowed books, repaired social bridges.
Monday
After a day at work that's not really worth mentioning, I ventured down to Hoyts Woden to meet up with another departments social club for a screening of Episode II: Attack of the Clones they'd organised.
[If you haven't seen Ep 2 yet and intend to, skip the red text]
Here's a tip; don't drink beer before you see this movie. We had complementary popcorn and drinks before the film. Not thinking that the diuretic effect would kick in during the 2 and a half hours, I drank happily. This caused me to miss about 5 minutes of dialogue between Obi Wan Kenobi and Count Dooku - I'm not a fan of leaving films when they're part way through, coming back just feels wierd & disjointed.
I've got to say I wasn't that impressed with Ep 2 the first time I saw it. Anakin seemed wooden and the dialogue seemed corny and laboured. It could be because I'm a lot older than when I saw the first films & just don't remember them being corny, I don't know.
I think my main problem with these new films is that ILM are showing off at the expense of the story. Where are the really bad bad guys? Darth Maul doesn't do much (mind you he is handy with a lightsaber - not handy enough tho), everyone knows what's going on with Darth Sideous, and now Darth Tyrannus, who is also handy with a bit of combat action, but seems to prefer working things out in meetings. When we first saw Darth Vader he was big and mean. He walked down the corridor, crushed some guys throat, tortured people and blew up planets, but what do we see in these films? A bit of hand to hand combat and a whole lot of talk... To have good guy role models (which help when you wanna sell action figures and lightsabers) you need to have really bad bad guys - maybe there are kids in playgrounds running around saying "hmm, we need to ponder this" and "hmm, a new mystery for us to figure out" now.
We're getting some good insight into the workings of the Jedi, but it seems George has missed a really good opportunity to tell us more about the Sith. Where do they come from? How does Sideous keep finding his cronies? If the focus is on Anakin in these prequel films, shouldn't we find out something about the group he later joins?
Oh yeah, and the Fetts were pretty weak too.
Yoda, however, was very cool - as were some of Obi Wans lines . I hope Mace Windu kicks more ass in the next film rather than just sitting around looking pensive.
Wednesday
The State of Origin game is a special thing for Queenslanders - moreso if they ever had the priviledge to witness a battle at Lang Park (corporate sponsors be damned).
Last year, Ms S and Louise came up to my place; Louise cooked while Ms S screamed at the television (please note - she is a dirty blue NSW person). It was a really good night.
This year Ms S had other committments, so Ross and Louise joined Angela and I for dinner. While Lou and I cooked up the bangers and mash, veges & everything else, Ross watched the first part of the game with Roy & HG in the commentary box. After dinner, we retired to the lounge for a screening of Zoolander, which was quite funny (I had no desire to see it at the cinema - why do they cut trailers that completely misrepresent films?).
Friday
Mick had a night off from running the youth group he's involved in, so he came around, we ate at Sizzle Bento & returned here to watch Rock Star, which is a pretty average film, but is worth a look if you find 80's glam rock amusing & want to see Marky Mark doing "Good Vibrations" in all of the rockstar get up.
Saturday
Had the big breakfast at The Durham with Ross & Ms S and then wandered home to start cleaning up the mess that'd been left to grow during the week. Tyson came around during the afternoon & showed us the video footage he's shot on his big three week around-the-world trip (part of which will be the topic of Sally Sara's postcard during The World Today on ABC Canberra and Radio National on Monday I'm told). I continued cleaning, then wandered up to the pub for a beer with the boys, then back to my place for more beer with the boys.
I'd been invited to Emma's birthday party, but with the group will to go diminishing I started to consider not going; I'm now glad that I was talked into it. Emma's another pub regular, she's friends with Lou and in Fame with Olivia, so there were some pub regulars, some Fame prodution people and a whole bunch of her work people there - I got some photos of the dancefloor which I think will turn out well - you'll all get to see them when the film is finished and processed.
I don't remember what time we all piled into cabs and returned to Kingston from Holder. I know it was late. I remember having a pretty good time around our regular table at the pub too. My last memory was the clock radio when my head hit the pillow; 03:30.
Sunday
In bed at 03:30, awake at 09:30 - no hangover!
I send a few messages around to see who's up for breakfast, and arrange to meet TJ and Huby at The Durham for their bacon & eggs platter. Plans change when Mike doesn't want to go there; we head up to Manuka with the intention of eating at Verve, but are turned away & told that their "machines are broken". After a quick examination of Mike's shitlist, we head back to Kingston and decide on Vie. Vie was pretty good; their service was pretty quick and their was about as much food as I expected for the prices (which were average for Kingston). After that breakfast I dropped in at The Durham, where Ross, Olivia, Kat and Chris had decided to begin the day (at lunchtime).
Spent the afternoon at Tuggers cinemas seeing Star Wars for the second time - I enjoyed it much more this time, but still thought it could've been better. Still, it craps all over Episode 1.
Tonight we're convening at Kat & Chris' for a night of multinational melodies with insulting BBC commentary; that's right folks it's Eurovision Song Contest time again! I've been watching Eurovision for about the last five years; in Brisbane, my mate Ben had made a game of it, so it sort of became mandatory to at least tune in for a bit every year since. SBS at 20:30 - should be funny, but I doubt I'll last long enough to see all of the scores (it's a long night, it'll be very late when all the scores are tallied).
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