Monday, January 25, 2010

Also:

I recently got employment from the website Suite101.com. If you want to help me out, check out my first article here! Thanks so much guys!

And Now for Something Completely Different...

I've been working as a tradie (construction worker for my North American friends) for the past little while, and I've been taking notes on the people. I plan to turn this into either a novel, a short story or even a short film soon. Who knows. Feedback is appreciated!

Working at a construction site for a few months while I wait for my masters course to start. Chris is 20 years old and lives with his girlfriend, with a baby on the way - he finds out the sex of it next ultrasound. Justin, who is 17, is his younger brother. He used to steal things and be a general hooligan, but now he's straightened up and is glad he outgrew the "shit-stirring" phase of his life and is concentrating on working, and his dream is to become a rapper. A famous one. Dan, Chris' former class mate, is a vacant brute who smokes too much and always smells like sweat, but hell, he can be a nice guy, too. Matt is a whiny pain in the ass who pretty much only opens his mouth to complain or to be a smart-ass to you. In response to Seth the electrician's comment about how Aboriginal Australians should have something on the flag instead of the Union Jack, Matt replied, "Why? What the fuck have they done? The English took it from 'em, fair and square. The Pohms (Brits) may be cunts, but they took it with guns like strong nations do. It's be like the boat people swarming our shores, taking our money and jobs, getting something on there, you know what I mean?"
"The world wouldn't be so shit if everyone wasn't such a bastard." was Seth's reply.
Jimmy is a small, Maori man who is more or less shaped like a ball, missing a front tooth to smoking, and has one of the best singing voices in Australia - when Jimmy asks you to do something, you do it. At fifty-five he could still throw around more weight than anyone else on the job - he was good. Nick the Builder is a scrawny, laughing man who is rarely seen, but is always doing work. Morad barely speaks any English, but that doesn't matter, because he, too, is always working. Shawn is the boss. He is one of the nicest men in the world, but had a bad year last year when some dumb shit he hired decided to fuck him over. Warren - who I had worked with before - you see, had decided that, instead of delivering the trash to the dump with the money Shawn gave him, he instead dumped it on the barren highway and pocketed the cash. No, if it had been no harm no foul, nothing would have happened...but. But, the police found the trash and on the furniture in the trash was the name of client. When the police contacted said client, the client contacted Shawn. As a result of this, there were fines, fights, Warren was fired, and Shawn lost the client, and can never work for them again. He was almost blacklisted as a contractor because of this. Warren is unhirable, sure, but Shawn copped some flack because of what he'd done. Nick the Builder's girlfriend worked in a morgue and she always came home, apparently, with great stories - one of which involved holding two pulsating hearts at once, but I missed that one. The other day I walked out of the life and just as I did I just caught the tail end of this story, "So my girlfriend, right, she works at the morgue and this one time she had to go pick up a body, right? And it was this old guy who had died of a heart attack, in the middle of jerking off! He died with his dick still in his hand and rigor mortis had set in, and so he was just slumped there, stiff as a rock, with his cock in his hand, a fresh load of cum on his belly!"
I suddenly remember a few years back working on a site with the same boss and the aforementioned Warren, and Warren was telling us this story about him living with his friend and his friend's wife, "So I staying with these cunts, right, and like, these cunts, they wanted to have a fuckin' threesome with me, right? And like, I'm not into dudes right, so I told the cunts to fuck off, because I didn't wanna have him nearby. I mean like, I fucked his missus, o'course, and he was, like, wanking in the corner, but that's pretty normal, ay?"
"I'm sorry, are they 'cunts' because you don't like them?"
"What? Nah, mate, these cunts are, like, my best friends, mate."
I remember Justin asking me, "So, like, do you study?" I told him I had finished my bachelors and was starting my masters in creative writing and he asked if that was the dream, "Journalism?" and I said, "No, the dream is to write." He seemed to really understand that, "I write sometimes," he said, "I write poetry, too, helps with my freestyle rap." I nodded and we talked about poetry and writing for some time. Then Chris, Nick and I were unloading plaster wall sheeting into the back of the ute, and Chris just says, "So you wanna be a writer, eh?"
"Yeah." I said.
"Mate, you should be taking notes as you work with us."
"As if I'm not."
"Better yet, just follow Nick around, eh?" He smiled at Nick. Nick, standing the tray of the truck laughed, "Fuckin' A, man!"
"Or maybe his girlfriend," I suggested, "She's the one who works at the morgue." I listened to myself as I said that sentence - how my usually Canadian accent was being subdued by the Australian one in an attempt to become a chameleon in this environment - the hard "r" from those words being removed and replaced with something reminiscent of an "h".
"Fuck yeah," Nick said, "She's got some fucking STORIES!" We all laughed at that. Salt of the earth these goddamn people.

Justin and I were loading more plaster into the garage, to go onto the truck, and a woman passed us with a chain tattoo on the back of her neck, a beautiful woman, and shapely. She eyed us and kept walking to her car. Justin smiled, "She totally smiled at me," he said, "I'd cork her champagne!"
As the plaster had made a hell of a mess on the floor, we were cleaning it, but in the process, made it worse. We then decided to clean it with rags and water on our hands and knees, Justin says, "Where's that mop you saw?" The mop didn't belong to us and the building already was making complaints, "I don't care if it's not ours, my brother is not going to clean on his hands and fucking knees!" He was angry because we weren't allowed, as tradesmen, to enter or walk through the main lobby foyer of the building we were working in, "Because scum aren't allowed to be seen on the ground floor" Justin paraphrased from the building manager. He was also mad because Chris had paid for everything of Justin's for a while because he was broke, and was driving himself broke, too. Chris was a good older brother, and Justin was fiercely loyal.

I remember Alan, and older man I worked with last time I worked for Shawn, who had been on the job for something like fifty years. He was always singing and whistling as he worked, pushing carts and hammering nails. I once asked what he was singing, "Oh, just something I wrote," was his only reply. Apparently, Alan had written lyrics and music for some real, well-known jazz and blues songs in Australia that were also often used in television.

Warren had a fat, balding friend on the job we worked together who's name I have now forgotten due to his lack of importance in my life - he also joined Warren in his trash dumping caper. This friend was the damn fool who didn't lift the right number of metal poles from the front that I was grabbing from the back, causing them to fall off the truck and into my body, causing me to get winded, and have an open cut on my stomach just below my ribcage, where there is now a small scar, shaped like to elongated scratch marks - a lucky break for what could have been much worse.

Matt got himself on a tirade again, "$3000 for having a baby, fuck that! They shouldn't get anything! Why? Because if you're having a baby, you should afford to look after it. Only after the third should you get the baby bonus! Single mothers, fuck that. You could be feminist and wank all day, or control the fucking population!"
"But what if I don't believe in abortion," Justin said, "and my girlfriend gets pregnant? I shouldn't get the bonus? We're not even eighteen yet."
"Wear a fucking condom, eh?" Matt said, shooting me a sly wink. Bastard.

"Haiti had another earthquake," Todd told us. He was a tall, lean man covered in tattoos below the neck who was on probation for a suspended sentence of drunken assault, "another 200,000 buried under rubble. That means over 150,000 dead. That's a sign from God, man. No one else is taking care of these people, so take them out of their misery."

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Zero-G

Steam recently released the free trial on all steam accounts of a new game called Zero-G. The game is basically a cuter version of Mario Kart, but with more jumping. The game is priced on Steam at $14.99 (USD) which seems fairly reasonable, considering you get more than just racing, with mini-games like soccer, hockey and a collect-the-points, tag style mini-game.

The game does offer customizable figures, which is a cute addition, considering all the characters are bizarre in the extreme from a cactus to a Cthulhu-like octopus, with extras like sunglasses, driving goggles and a brain-slug.

It is a fun and enjoyable game, despite some mildly debilitating driving problems that are caused by high ping rates and is a nice addition to the Steam collection. It can, however, be mildly frustrating as the turning circle and directional capabilities of the car seem somewhat small and slow. Mahalo.

Funny Games Hedges Its Bets

As I type, I have just finished watching perhaps one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. Written and directed by Caché's Michael Heneke, Funny Games is a powerful deconstruction of the presentation of violence in the media, and the expectations of the audience. Those of you who have seen either Caché or any other of Heneke's films know that he likes to disrupt the audience's experience by giving them the unexpected in the most powerful way possible, and Funny Games does just that.

A happy, wealthy suburban family George (Tim Roth), Ann (Naomi Watts) and their son Georgie (Devon Gearhart) are just beginning their holiday in their beautiful summer home when two creepy and soft-spoken teenagers, Paul (Michael Pitt) and Peter (Brady Corbet) invade their home and proceed to toy with the family for their own twisted amusement.

Ann: Why don't you just kill us?!
Peter: Never underestimate the importance of entertainment.

Exactly. Heneke is clearly toying with the audience's desire to see a film where the family is tortured (physically and emotionally) with the real possibility of death. This is done in a fashion which can only be described as "soul destroying" as you watch the family desperately trying to get free from the grasp of these insane people, whilst simultaneously making the audience uncomfortable with some very unexpected moments of breaking the fourth wall from Paul. The film comments on how violence is seen in film and on the news, how the audience is separated from the violence by the television screen, but that doesn't stop it (philosophically) from being real.

Paul: [Fiction] is just as real as reality because you can see it too.

Overall the film is stylistically brilliant and very well scripted, but definitely not for the faint of heart. Although the viewer is uncomfortable for almost all of the film, it is still (for lack of better terms) an enjoyable watch - that is, if you don't mind your soul being just a little destroyed. Mahalo.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

PocahAvatar

Recently, the film world, critics and general viewers alike, has been aflame, raving with positive words for James Cameron's new epic "Avatar". There are some things I would like to point out as to why it does not deserve the 8 out of 10 it has been receiving.

Let me start by saying, I was entertained by the film. It was enjoyable to watch, but that was all it was, nothing deeper. Having said that, let me begin with the praise for the film. It was, undoubtedly, a masterpiece of film technology which was an absolute pleasure to behold. The world was intricate and intense - reminding viewers of older generations of the children's classic "Fern Gully" in some respects. The animals were creative and the native people were beautiful to behold, despite the fact it felt like they were merely alien mash-ups of pre-existing native peoples, but more on this later. The battle scenes were epic and kept you wanting to see more, and the sweeping shots made the 3D a very interesting experience, one which takes the first ten minutes of viewing to get used to. But don't get me wrong, 3D is the ONLY way to see this film on the big screen. I would also like to extend congratulations to relative unknowns Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation) and Zoe Saldana (Star Trek) for their prowess at portraying their roles of Jake Sully and Neytiri respectively.

Now, the problems. As I mentioned earlier, the alien race of the Na'vi are merely a combination of blue skin and earthling natives. More specifically, they are seemingly racist stereotypes of Africans and Native Americans mixed with the fictional race of Night Elves from the online game World of Warcraft. I would also like to point out that aliens in films are always one of two things: either a) they vastly outdo Earthlings on the level of technology or b) are completely primitive. The fact that the Na'vi are the latter does not do much for the case of them not being racist stereotypes of existing native peoples.
Secondly, the story. Sure, it can be said that it is "an oldy but a goody", but that does not stop this film from being "Pocahantas" with Aliens. I suppose if it had been told in a way that wasn't completely the same as all the others, it would be great, but unfortunately, it's not. Also, when a film has to have a Deus Ex Machina as large as the one at "Avatar"s end, it does not show much for the screenplay.
Thirdly, the dialogue. Wow. I can't even express how bland, predictable and outdated the dialogue was, especially Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) seemingly taken from one of Cameron's other films, "Aliens". When there is actually dialogue like this in a film:
Sully: It's over!
Quaritch: It's not over as long as I'm still breathing!
Sully: I was hoping you'd say that.
it's obvious there is a serious case of 80's going on.
Lastly, I'd like to say that, despite enjoyable and accurate acting by the whole cast - Sigourney Weaver still being a pleasure to have on screen with her delightfully disagreeable Dr. Grace Augustine - the characters were frighteningly two dimensional and predictable.

In my humble opinion, this film deserves a 7/10 at MOST, and maybe even a 6/10 because story and characters are so important as far as a film goes - a film should not have to blind you with graphics to distract from its predictability and lack of depth. Mahalo.

Make Way, Make Room for the Brothers Bloom!

It is very rare to encounter a film which so immediately becomes one which you can watch and rewatch without its contents becoming tired and bland. Even rarer is it to come across such films whilst on a fourteen hour flight between Sydney and Los Angeles. As I flicked through the entertainment system on my flight, I came across an interestingly titled film called "The Brothers Bloom" which I had never heard of. This was strange to me, as I like to keep up with new films, and it had a cast including Adrian Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel Weisz.

To use the words 'cute' and 'endearing' to describe this film would be an understatement. So would 'hilarious' and 'quirky'. The film opens with a fairytale-esque sequence of the main characters Steven (Ruffalo) and Bloom (Brody) as children, with narration that rhymes in a cadence similar to that of Disney films or other such children's films, but with a distinct dark humour to it. After this and as soon as the film opens properly, you are met with a story so intriguing and characters so compelling and likable that you are actually disappointed when the films ends, wanting more. The brothers Bloom are conmen who find their final mark in the form of eccentric (and beautiful) shut-in, Penelope (Weisz).

Although there are moments with the intricacy of the plot is confounding, it can be revealed upon further viewings, which will be wanted as a result of the overall sweetness and enjoyability of the film as a whole. It is a thoroughly enjoyable film and will leave you with tears of joy and the laughter of sadness. Mahalo.