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Post by angra on Aug 14, 2013 4:52:29 GMT 10
Loving the Doctor Who reruns on ABC.
Last night we had a hospital transported to the moon. Cue endless medical jokes. We have the evil Voltarens using slave droids The Zovirax from the dark planet Anusol 2 which is endlessly orbiting a black hole. Now I understand Abbott's suppositories.
But the villains are the Jejunes (which seems to perfectly sum up our present politicians).
Writers Russell Davies and Steven Moffat must win the prize for the best SF spoofers since Douglas Adams!
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Post by angra on Aug 27, 2013 13:52:25 GMT 10
Two of the most wonderful books I have ever read have been made into films and will released in Australia in the coming months. The Book Thief and Mr. Pip.
They have something in common - the power of the imagination to triumph over the most cruel and hellish circumstances.
I hope they live up to the greatness of the original books.
Watch them and give us your opinions!
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Aug 27, 2013 14:05:55 GMT 10
The Book Thief is a gorgeous book. I didn't know it was being made into a film, though - I'll keep an eye out for that.
I listened to a recent "pritzger military library" podcast ep, which was by an author who's written a book about the US and UK guys who went into Europe during WWII to try to find and protect cultural treasures. If you can dig up the podcast, it's surprising stuff. I didn't know anything about it. Apparently that's being used as the basis for a film to be released later this year, with mr clooney in it and all.
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Post by angra on Aug 27, 2013 14:16:37 GMT 10
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jreidy
Junior Member
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Post by jreidy on Aug 31, 2013 19:01:21 GMT 10
I have several favourites as well.
High Noon is great, I watched it last with my two sons then aged 13 and 10, after the initial problem (for them), with black and white we were all gripped.
A recent favourite is "Children of Men" set is a future dystopian UK (so it isn't much of a stretch).
On YouTube, have a look at "David Blaine-street magic", it is what is great about YouTube, a couple of guys , maybe in acting school with a camera and a script. It is very silly - but for once it shows the Yanks can do comedy, the first time I saw it I was laughing that it hurt.
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jreidy
Junior Member
Posts: 60
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Post by jreidy on Aug 31, 2013 19:09:50 GMT 10
For SF spoof, have a look at "The Year Zero" You could say it is Hitchhikers Guide meets music copyright law.
In it, the Galactic Civilisation excels at all cultures except for music - where they suck.
In 1978 they had "the Kotter moment" when they picked up a stray broadcast of "Welcome back Kotter" For the first time they heard real music.
Apart from putting all of their own musicians out of work, they renamed all of the metallic elements after heavy metal bands... It just goes in from there...
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Post by angra on Aug 31, 2013 19:58:30 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Aug 31, 2013 20:13:35 GMT 10
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Post by angra on Aug 31, 2013 21:27:11 GMT 10
I'm loving the Doctor Who reruns on ABC. Who else but Russell Davies or Stephen Moffat could have a spaceship called The Titanic crashing to Earth with Kylie Minogue on board! And Aliens, and evil businessmen!
Sadly she doesn't make it. But David Tennant does mange to kiss her - twice.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 1, 2013 9:38:32 GMT 10
Watched The Sapphires last night (in a curious double with A Touch Of Evil - it just happened that way).
The Sapphires is cute. It's schmaltzy and sentimental and unlikely, and it has a political aspect that is probably a bit clumzy (if heartfelt - obviously I'd like to see Our Friend watch it just to see him foam at the mouth and shout things about genuine aborigines). But the lead actresses are gorgeous, the music is good, there are some very funny rom-com moments (like when Kay bumps into a buff, nay "cut", american soldier with his shirt off and her brain evaporates).
And the 60's girl band outfits are pretty freakin' awesome - knee-high boots, short 60's skirts with some synchronized knee-hip-and-shoulder action make rhianna's vids look pretty antiseptic and miley cyrus look ridiculous.
When the film explains why the two girls were fighting it hit me, too. Yep, kids do say stupid sh1t like that.
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Post by angra on Sept 1, 2013 9:53:53 GMT 10
I thought The Sapphires was brilliant, and has some serious messages beneath the comedy.
You might remember Chris O'Dowd from The IT Crowd where he has a fantastic Tony Abbott moment when he presents boss Jan with "The Internet!" (a box with a blinking light) and she believes him.
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 1, 2013 11:28:30 GMT 10
"You might remember Chris O'Dowd from The IT Crowd"
(cue Simpsons "you may remember me from such light comedies ..."). I reckon it was his part in Bridesmaids that'll get him more work. In that he's a really likeable character without having to be a goose.
The IT crowd is funny, though. A vague awareness of the in-jokes is helpful in my line of work, an increasing number of people not being old enough to remember Hitchhikers or (god forbid) The Goodies. An increasing number of them have also never written an LL(k) parser and don't know how a hash table works, but that's a different discussion.
I'm ambivalent about the social message part of the sapphires. We're still at the stage when its it's apparently necessary to spell it out for the slow ones, so it comes across as a bit indoctrinate-y, and the social setting probably a bit cartoonish (Judith Lucy's character an example, but very funny anyway). But as the context for the rift between the older girls, it was very well applied.
The tupperware party was a nice touch - although I have my doubts about the historical accuracy of some of the items. I'm pretty sure that some of them weren't available until the 80's, but I wouldn't go to the wall over it.
Back in the 80's once, I was in the bar of the Sydney Hilton (it was a nerd convention - possibly one of the first big ones in oz) when a girl sorta in our group was getting very upset trying to explain what it was like being a young and attractive white aboriginal girl in the big city (and it's true - she was absolutely smokin'). The comment that stuck with me was "you can't imagine how it feels for a guy to say 'you're too pretty to be an aborigine'". She really was on the edge of tears and her boyfriend didn't seem interested - she was arguing straight past him to his friends. I just filed it at the time because that's what my brain does, and because I was a pretty angry kid who (when it came down to it) hated most people because I figured I was never going to meet a girl - pretty or otherwise - so I had much bigger problems, not to mention that she struck me as self-centered and stuck-up (i.e. she wasn't talking to me and I had no idea how to talk to her).
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Post by angra on Sept 1, 2013 11:56:30 GMT 10
Bran Nue Dae on the same theme is even funnier. Specially when Ernie points the bone at VW van that has left them at the side of the road, then the engine blows up and he throws away the bone in horror. www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_-EGqgQn8w
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Post by Matthew Of Canberra on Sept 1, 2013 12:16:51 GMT 10
"then the engine blows up"
Mwaha! Reminds me of the scene in "Tha Craic" when our protagonists (Jimoein and another guy) see their Fried Out Combi[1] roll off an outback road and down a hill, then flip over. One of them says something like "phew" and the thing explodes into flames.
One of the coolest moments in that film is when the nasty IRA man is about to off them in a darkened alley for some slight (hitting him in the head with a beer can, I think) when the headlights of the assembled british military flash on behind him.
[1] No doubt some copyright squatter will find a way to sue me for that.
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Post by angra on Sept 1, 2013 15:52:10 GMT 10
Channel 10 has a really great programme on right now (if your a geeky sort). 'Robots in Flight' is about a student competition to build a UAV to search and locate someone lost, photograph the details of position etc. then drop an emergency survival kit.
Bloody brilliant!
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