Up the Rainbow Bridge
Happy Easter! To celebrate this most holy of Christian festivals, I went to see a movie about a pagan god: The Mighty Thor. Of course, they've made him an alien and Birfrost a wormhole, but all the mythological characters and structures are otherwise largely intact, including Sif and the Warriors Three, Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral. I've never been much of a fan of the Thunder God, but with the Hulk and Iron Man already out there and Captain America coming up next, it's obvious we'll be getting an Avengers movie before long, so it's important to keep up.
Kenneth Branagh did a good job, and Anthony Hopkins makes a good Odin. This Australian kid they found to play Thor was beyond perfect, and engaging in just the way the movie is overall. This is light entertainment, as it should be. There's a lot more humor than we've seen out of Marvel Studios in general, and just enough of the various other dramatic elements to keep things moving right along. The spectacle of it all is not in any way underdone, but I have to question the 3D.
I'm not unhappy with it, entirely, but there wasn't much reason to bother, really. Standard 2D would have been enough. Funnily enough, movies have always been effective at deceiving the eye into a 3D experience, without the glasses. In this case, the illusion of depth was, I think, counteractive to this illusion. The different planes in which the action took place seemed flat layerings of one image upon on another, with none of the rounding binolocular vision affords in reality and our brain has supplied in movies over the years. Some of the faster action sequences seriously suffered in this respect. I'm hopeful they'll start leaving it alone if they can't make it any better than this just yet.
25 April 2011
Dear Russell Crowe
I started attending Rabbitohs games as a member the year before Peter Holmes a Court and Russell Crowe bought their controlling interest, having learned to enjoy the sport since moving here, adopting them as my team out of a sense of loyalty to my ex (who only ever cheered for them because of a soft spot for small animals) and because, c'mon, any team with such a fearsome mascot is worth supporting. (Yes, I know, that's sarcasm, not irony, the sense of humour that Australians think American's don't get, so maybe we don't.)
But for all the investment Mr. Crowe has put in - especially the addition of Sam Burgess and David Taylor last year, and Greg Inglis this year - how am I left with such a win-less team? Granted, it's only round seven, but the only performer on the side is the littlest guy, Chris Sandow, who's kicking wonderfully well, not to mention scoring tries that seem to galvanise the squad, if only for ten minutes or so.
People talk about players being "80-minute men", but I'd say the Rabbitohs manage about thirty per half, before fading into irrelevancy. The Bulldogs didn't just manage to off-load the ball whenever they needed to, they also managed their passing in a way that suggested South Sydney had collectively taken a blow to the head that left them unable to follow the movement, letting Canterbury penetrate the defense easily.
The score, 36-24, suggests a closer game than it was.
On the station platform on the way out, a local wag remarked, "next year, brother, next year". Seems like maybe that's the way this season will turn out. Do I need to think about a new loyalty?
I started attending Rabbitohs games as a member the year before Peter Holmes a Court and Russell Crowe bought their controlling interest, having learned to enjoy the sport since moving here, adopting them as my team out of a sense of loyalty to my ex (who only ever cheered for them because of a soft spot for small animals) and because, c'mon, any team with such a fearsome mascot is worth supporting. (Yes, I know, that's sarcasm, not irony, the sense of humour that Australians think American's don't get, so maybe we don't.)
But for all the investment Mr. Crowe has put in - especially the addition of Sam Burgess and David Taylor last year, and Greg Inglis this year - how am I left with such a win-less team? Granted, it's only round seven, but the only performer on the side is the littlest guy, Chris Sandow, who's kicking wonderfully well, not to mention scoring tries that seem to galvanise the squad, if only for ten minutes or so.
People talk about players being "80-minute men", but I'd say the Rabbitohs manage about thirty per half, before fading into irrelevancy. The Bulldogs didn't just manage to off-load the ball whenever they needed to, they also managed their passing in a way that suggested South Sydney had collectively taken a blow to the head that left them unable to follow the movement, letting Canterbury penetrate the defense easily.
The score, 36-24, suggests a closer game than it was.
On the station platform on the way out, a local wag remarked, "next year, brother, next year". Seems like maybe that's the way this season will turn out. Do I need to think about a new loyalty?
22 April 2011
11 April 2011
The Feminism Mystique
I don’t think Paul Sheehan understands women or feminism, a condition that usually sees men avoiding the topic and letting women columnists and pundits to argue that feminism is wholly at odds with femininity. The idea that wearing high heels proves that Betty Friedan was an opportunistic middle class hack with no foundation for her argument is ludicrous. Blaming women for the social ailments of women is just blaming the victim, again. Short skirts don’t make rapists and they don’t preclude men making more money for the same work than the women. How is calling models “giraffes” not objectification, one of the very things Friedan – and other “Jurassic Feminists” – wrote and raised our consciousness about? If we look more closely into the fashion machine, how many of the houses are run by women? How many of the leading designers are women? I don’t follow this stuff much, but leaving aside the power of Anna Wintour at Vanity Fair – which isn’t nearly as much as The Devil Wears Prada would lead you to believe – the only one I can think of is Donna Karan, a perennial also-ran in the high-price/high-profile stakes. Ralph Lauren spends more effort on projecting idealisations of body type to women than other women do. But that’s all right, because really we’ve just survived a “demographic deformity caused by World War II”, not a great awakening to the possibility of changing power relationships that had women unable to easily obtain a divorce and without control over their own bodies. Yeah, the Pill had nothing to do with the changes wrought or the “distortions” initiated by Rosie the Riviter and elucidated by Friedan et al. It’s all about the babies, folks, and women need to get back to their real jobs.
Why does Fairfax pay for this guff?
I don’t think Paul Sheehan understands women or feminism, a condition that usually sees men avoiding the topic and letting women columnists and pundits to argue that feminism is wholly at odds with femininity. The idea that wearing high heels proves that Betty Friedan was an opportunistic middle class hack with no foundation for her argument is ludicrous. Blaming women for the social ailments of women is just blaming the victim, again. Short skirts don’t make rapists and they don’t preclude men making more money for the same work than the women. How is calling models “giraffes” not objectification, one of the very things Friedan – and other “Jurassic Feminists” – wrote and raised our consciousness about? If we look more closely into the fashion machine, how many of the houses are run by women? How many of the leading designers are women? I don’t follow this stuff much, but leaving aside the power of Anna Wintour at Vanity Fair – which isn’t nearly as much as The Devil Wears Prada would lead you to believe – the only one I can think of is Donna Karan, a perennial also-ran in the high-price/high-profile stakes. Ralph Lauren spends more effort on projecting idealisations of body type to women than other women do. But that’s all right, because really we’ve just survived a “demographic deformity caused by World War II”, not a great awakening to the possibility of changing power relationships that had women unable to easily obtain a divorce and without control over their own bodies. Yeah, the Pill had nothing to do with the changes wrought or the “distortions” initiated by Rosie the Riviter and elucidated by Friedan et al. It’s all about the babies, folks, and women need to get back to their real jobs.
Why does Fairfax pay for this guff?
01 April 2011
Zeds
It's amusing (to me, anyway) having learned to consistently spell and even speak according to the Australian vernacular, to find myself stumbling over "New Zealand", inevitably calling it "New Zedland", because, of course, Z is not Z, it's Zed. The New Zedlanders I speak to don't mind so much when I say "N Zed", and seem to take it in good humour (sic) when I say "New Zedland", but I do seem to be the only one falling into this.
Anyway, I've now returned from there, Auckland, specificially, for a business trip, and my first non-US overseas excursion. Auckland is a nice city. Small, easy to get around. Naturally we were staying right in the heart of the CBD, and just around the corner from the main office, so I can't say really what it might really be like to live there. The harbour is much different from that of Sydney or New York or San Francisco. It's big enough, and the hotel had a view of the container port, which was pretty much non-stop all night and day, even when there wasn't a ship to load/off-load. Fun to watch for a while.
I'd like to get back there and explore a bit. Christchurch seems to have quietened down now, but it'll be a long time before it's ready for tourism. The Rugby League World Cup commences soon, but that would be a bad time for me, even though I do like the code, and hotels likely to be sold out already. I'll have to do some research. It seems to me you could do a lot in just a week.
It's amusing (to me, anyway) having learned to consistently spell and even speak according to the Australian vernacular, to find myself stumbling over "New Zealand", inevitably calling it "New Zedland", because, of course, Z is not Z, it's Zed. The New Zedlanders I speak to don't mind so much when I say "N Zed", and seem to take it in good humour (sic) when I say "New Zedland", but I do seem to be the only one falling into this.
Anyway, I've now returned from there, Auckland, specificially, for a business trip, and my first non-US overseas excursion. Auckland is a nice city. Small, easy to get around. Naturally we were staying right in the heart of the CBD, and just around the corner from the main office, so I can't say really what it might really be like to live there. The harbour is much different from that of Sydney or New York or San Francisco. It's big enough, and the hotel had a view of the container port, which was pretty much non-stop all night and day, even when there wasn't a ship to load/off-load. Fun to watch for a while.
I'd like to get back there and explore a bit. Christchurch seems to have quietened down now, but it'll be a long time before it's ready for tourism. The Rugby League World Cup commences soon, but that would be a bad time for me, even though I do like the code, and hotels likely to be sold out already. I'll have to do some research. It seems to me you could do a lot in just a week.
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