Flashback: The Mario Bros Movie

New "segment" I want to do which is called FLASHBACK: having a look at stuff from our

childhoods.

We all grew up with the awesome and, in many ways, delightfully camp films from the late eighties  and early nineties. They are cinematic classics. Films you know, like the Back to the Future trilogy,  the Indiana Jones trilogy - which was unfortunately and unforgettably molested recently - and the original Tim Burton Batman films. And some films which stood on their own like The Goonies, Beetlejuice and Ferris Bueller's Day Off among many others.

Combined within this, for us as a lucky generation, were those classic video games which started off the modern gaming identities held within PlayStation and Xbox and Wii. Games such as Pacman, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and the all time favourite, Super Mario Brothers. None of which, upon reflection, make any sense concerning their stories, but were fun nonetheless.

After all that was said and done, there was a phase in cinema history which continues on to this day, and that is making films out of the games we love so much. Some of them are kind of okay, though none really come to mind right now, and some are just downright embarrassing. Most of them come to mind right now. But one film from my childhood, which in some ways seemed pretty great then, comes to mind right now. And that film is the critically despised, and generally disliked, Super Mario Bros film.

For those of you who haven't seen this film - I urge you, please, please do. It is truly one of the best achievements in 90s camp cinema. Notice in films like Back to the Future: Part II and Batman and Robin and many others, that there was a certain level of puppetry and bright neon colours and garbage involved in the scenes. If you've seen any of these 90s camp movies, you know what I mean. This film does it best. What's worse really, is that it uses some truly fantastic actors to capture it all. Actors who, probably, had significant damage done to their careers because of it.

This film, which boasts a whopping 3.8/10 on IMDB.com and an astounding 13% on RottenTomatoes.com, hosts John Leguizamo as Luigi, Samantha Mathis - yes, she was big news in the 90s - as Daisy (a princess), acting heavyweight Bob Hoskins as Mario and original Easy Rider Dennis Hopper as King Coopa. Yes. Seriously. Also, an animatronic Yoshi. Rotten Tomatoes gives it the brief review of 

"[d]espite flashy sets and special effects, Super Mario Bros. is too light on story and substance to be anything more than a novelty".

That's more or less right, but it's also so much more. It is truly ridiculous.

Princess Daisy is a woman born from the dinosaur-ruled world of King Coopa - a parallel universe in which mankind evolved from the lizards instead of primates - and she is the only one who can save it from the evil king. Mario Mario and Luigi Mario - again, no, I'm not kidding - help her out while being plumbers, apparently bad ones at that. Meanwhile, the idiot lackeys of Coopa kidnap Mario's girlfriend Peach (a-ha) and so it turns out he must rescue her, too.

I'm not kidding. Seriously, see this movie. It is by far one of the funniest and most amusing films you will ever enjoy…with the gift of hindsight.

Mahalo.

Stories from Nothing: The Flower

Catalyst: L found a flower on the ground and put it in an open mailbox on the way home.

Story: The flower lay in the mailbox, unexposed to the elements, atop the Morgans' electricity bill. Laura and Richard came home at the same time and, as Richard parked the car, Laura would go out to the mailbox and retrieve whatever lay within.
Reaching her hand in today, she pulled out the still-crisp flower and stared at it.
"Richard!" she said, stomping into the house. "Richard, come here!"
"What?" Richard put his keys on the kitchen counter.
Laura held the flower out to him. "Someone put this in our mailbox."
"Who?"
"I don't know, Richard, why don't you tell me?"
"Honey, I don't know who would do that," Richard moved to her, to take the flower. "Where was it?"
"I told you it was in the mailbox!" she held it away from him. "Was it her, Richard? Was it her again?"
"Jesus, Laura," Richard said, turning away. "It's over with her. I ended it. You know that."
"Do I? Because this says different!"
"No it does--"
"She's coming back! She's putting things in our mailbox now!"
"We don't know for sure--"
"Don't be a child!" she threw the flower across the room. "Who else would it be?"
"It could by anyone!"
"Why would anyone put a flower in someone's mailbox?" Laura began to cry. "You bastard," she said, then. "You bastard."
"Who would do this to us?" Richard said to himself, under his breath. He sat at the kitchen table. "Why?"

Bad Religion Rock the Hi-Fi

Through the wind and the rain we ran, Lucy and I, towards Moore Park and into the Entertainment Quarter, heading towards the Hi-Fi. We were already late, due mostly in part to leaving later than expected, but also to ridiculously increased traffic as a result of the rain and the fact that rain seems to make the city completely shut down.

"We might miss both Street Dogs and Strung Out," I said. "But we should be there in time to catch Bad Religion start."

"We will," Lucy said. "If the timing's right, we might not even miss Strung Out. If there's three bands, then Bad Religion shouldn't go up before," she checks my watch, "nine fifteen or so."

"True."

This was to be her first punk show.

We get off the bus and arrive at the venue, changed from our original destination of the Big Top at Luna Park for unknown reasons. I'd never been to the Hi-Fi, but it's proximity to the Hordern Pavilion made it an easy find.

When we got there, the line didn't seem so long. It jutted out from the venue, loud bass drums and grungy guitars - from what I thought was Strung Out - audible and blaring from inside.

"I think this is the place," I said.

"Y'think?" Lucy smiled and elbowed me in the ribs.

We went to join the queue and that's when we saw that it extended around the corner of the place.

"God damnit," I said. "Brilliant."

It took twenty minutes of standing in the rain to finally get into the place, wrist stamped and position gained. The band we had heard from outside was finished. I went straight to the merch stall and got a t-shirt.

"Jesus riding a nuke down to the ground like from Strangelove," I said to Lucy, "or pig-headed priest leading the blind choir?"

Lucy stared for a moment. She used to be religious. "I know why you'd want the Jesus-nuke, but I think the pig-priest looks better. Either way, don't wear them in front of my parents."

"Deal."

I bought pig-priest. Lucy pointed at a list on the merch table. It was the band list. I checked my watch.

"We haven't even missed the Street Dogs," I said. "We missed the Menzingers. Oh, well there you go. Bad Religion don't come on til ten forty-five."

Lucy smiled. We staked out a place in the middle of the pit and waited. The lights dimmed after a quarter hour and the Boston boys, the Street Dogs, began to play. All in all, they weren't bad. A traditional punk band with Dropkick Murphys-like elements. A young band earning their stripes, really. The singer had not yet piqued our interest, so his many attempts to get us shouting and dancing were often to no avail, but they were not a bad band and definitely had potential.

When they had finished I squeezed through the throng back towards the bar to get water, making Lucy promise not to move or I'd never find her again. She's a small girl and it was a big crowd. I stumbled through and got a cup of water and came back just as Strung Out were starting.

I was just as equally unimpressed with Strung Out as I was the last time I saw them open for Bad Religion in 2007 for the New Maps of Hell Tour. They are a bland, loud band that is more like a wall of same-sounding noise without any particular style. Sufficed to say, I was bored. But the crowd seemed to like them, so I guess that counts for something.

At one point during a song the singer looked right at me and said, "Don't just stand there looking at me, move!" To which I softly replied, "nope".

They finished, mercifully, in the allotted time and left. It was time for the main event. The big cheeses of punk rock. With over 30 years experience and a 300+ song library to choose from, these guys were always amazing. I had seen them live. I had listened to the live albums. I had even watched live DVDs and clips from concerts uploaded online. I was pumped to see them again. We made our way right up to the front and waited.

And then the lights dimmed.

A roar of joy and anticipation exploded from the crowd as Jay Bentley came onstage and picked up his base. Brooks Wackerman sat down at his kit and Greg Hetson picked up his guitar, blind in the mild dark. Then Jay started to play, busting out the thudding baseline to "Fuck Armageddon...this is Hell". The crowd cheered as loud bellow. Brian Baker came on with his axe and finally, the kind, the commanding master of punk, the professor, Mr. Greg Graffin stepped onstage in his unabashedly and unashamedly uncool outfit of flannel shirt and jeans, pointed at us and then it started.

The crowd crushed forward and we were crushed. The bodies flailed around. Lucy could hardly believe her eyes at the crushing smashes of the pit and the circles. She moved along with them.

After the first three songs, we decided to make our way back and get to a safer distance. To do so, we had to pass through the pit, but we had to get out. We made it back. We could still see the band and could actually hear better from here anyway. I was shouting those lyrics like no one's business.

"Hear it", "Anesthesia", "You Are the Government", "Modern Man", "Generator", "You", "Sanity", all the old classics were there. "Wrong Way Kids" off of the latest alum, Dissent of Man, was there too. The group bantered on stage in their unassuming and experienced way, mostly from Graffin and Bentley.

Then they played the one song from The Empire Strikes First I so desperately wanted to hear, "God's Love".

"Some of you might know the set list already if you looked on the internet," Graffin said before "God's Love", "but no amount of sleuthing will have gotten you this song on there because we just added it to the set list backstage. We haven't even rehearsed it."

"See where your PC has gotten you now?" he sneered with a smile. "I'm sorry, I mean your Mac."

"No!" Bentley cried.

"Right," Graffin meandered around stage. "The innovator is dead so we have to respect him now. Write a 3000 page book about him."

And into the song they went.

The set was hard, fast and excellent.

 I slammed myself into the pit for "I Wanna Conquer the World" and got knocked around something fierce, but it was worth it. It's a community in those shows. A strange, bedraggled brotherhood.

"We're trying to release a new album this year," Graffin said. "Even though all you guys like is the old stuff."

"We're going for our first platinum record in 2013."

The group laughed. Pretty much an unachievable goal for a punk band and they knew it. At least, a punk band that wasn't in the style of Green Day or The Offspring.

The main set finished and the crowd began baying for the expected encore.

"We know you're not done yet!"

They weren't.

"You want one more song?" Jay Bentley said. "Well we're gonna play you four!"

And of course, of those four, one was "21st Century Digital Boy" and the grand finale, the great masterpiece, "American Jesus". The crowd - including me - went nuts for that final ten minutes.

Just as abruptly as it had begun, it was over. The lights went up and the people began to file out. Lucy and I grabbed some water and headed back out into the rain.

"That was fantastic," Lucy said as we walked, drenched, along Cleveland Street towards home. "My god, they're the best I've ever seen. Especially in that genre! How have no other bands cottoned on how to do it like that yet?"

"That's what makes them the best," I said. "They've got it going on. And they're so goddamn smart!"

Through the wind and the rain we went back, finally getting a cab back home and collapsing into bed at one thirty a.m. Worth it on a work night? You bet your arse.

Mahalo.

Storm Warning

it's like a FLASH
of the burning purple lightning
that brightens the night sky
for a moment in time
and makes the world
an unnatural colour
at the oddest time while
the trees blow in the gale-force
wind and rain.

the streets are a river
and cars can't keep a grip
that's what it feels like
while you're in it.

you're waiting for that bough to break
come crashing down and
smashing in your front
windows
the roof of your home
but it stays
keeps steady
hanging on despite it all
because it's stronger than you think -
like the bough -
this thing called love.

It Ain't Easy Being Green

I think it's safe to say that, generally, we don't think about colours. I don't mean in the fashion way, but more in the "why do we attribute so  much meaning to them" way. For example, science says that both men[1] and women[2] are more likely to go after people who are wearing red. The study showed that even pictures of the same people were rated as hotter if they were wearing red. The reasoning seems to be that men find red on women sexier, taking the colour as an implicit tendency towards sexuality, whereas women were apprently turned on by red because it represents power. Go figure - science, supporting cultural stereotypes!

But, alas, I'm not here to talk to you about the colour red. I'm here to talk about the colour green, in all of its multi-faceted confusion.

What do you think of when I say green?

Spring and renewal? Decay and sickness? With envy? Maybe you think of "being green" or environmentally friendly (thanks Green Party and Greepeace). Or maybe of wealth, "I'm in the green!" (thanks, American dollar). Also, green is the sign of being in the clear (stoplights, stock-market, etc.) as opposed to "being in the red" (bad). But, again, I'm not here to talk about red.
None of you would be wrong. It turns out that green, from what I can tell, is by far the most confusing colour ever. It represents, in some cases, complete, fundamental opposites.

It may be pretty obvious to you why green is associated with renewal and cleanliness - and if it isn't obvious, let me explain. In spring, things (RE: plants) turn green again, becoming fresh and new. That's it. Glad I could clear that up for you.

Now, while it may also seem obvious about green being associated with death, decay and sickness, not all of it is as clear as you might think. The obvious parts are that a decaying anything turns green in some way - old fruit goes green (and fuzzy), etc. When someone is sick, they take on a greenish pallor. Seems straightforward, right? Well, here is where things take a turn for the creepy and weird.
One of the reasons green is associated with death isn't just because of the sickness pallor or mould, but because of graveyards. 

Back in the days before proper embalming practices and sealed coffin burial were introduced, you were pretty much just thrown into a hole in the ground unless you were rich. Sure, you got a nice pine box or some such, but it wasn't exactly high quality wood - not like the Caddilac coffins we get now. Snazzy. Anyway, the biggest side effect of throwing numerous decomposing bodies into holes in and around the same area were the gasses. Sure, the smell was gone - that's why they bury you six feet down, so your body-stink doesn't infest the rest of the graveyard - but the gases still pile up. These gases would seep through the soil to the top.
Have you ever seen a horror film with a scene set in graveyard and it's all misty? Well picture that, but in the moonlight, it was green. I'm not kidding. The light reflected off of the stink-gases were literally cause a greenish glow around the graveyard. Thus, green was forever associated with death, decay, sickness and technically, the occult.

So, I hear you cry, from whence does the term "green with envy" come? Well, now that you know all that stuff above, it's relatively simple. There are a few explanations for the use of green's association with envy, some biblical, some Shakespearian. All pretty much the same. 

In the Bible, they're pretty clear that envy (or "coveting") is a pretty bad thing. In the Middle Eastern region, stemming from ancient times, given that light-coloured eyed people were quite rare, they were said to carry the Evil Eye[3]. So, anyone with green or blue eyes was bad luck. There was also an original Hebrew term that spawned the modern "green with envy" and that was horik panav ke-neged which meant "to be green with anger at someone"[4]. The Greeks believed envy was a result of an overproduction of bile, leading to a greenish pallor in the skin during sickness and interchanged the words "green" and "pale" to mean sickly[5]. The European medical idea of the Humours didn't differ much from this. Seeing as envy was seen as a sickness, they associated it with the same colour. Shakespeare even anthropomorphised it in Othello, “O! Beware my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on". And in Anthony and Cleopatra, "…and Lepidus, since Pompey's feast, as Menas says, is troubled with the green sickness".  And in The Merchant of Venice, "How all the other passions fleet to air, as doubtful thoughts and rash embraced despair and shuddering fear and green-eyed jealousy".

There you have it. green represents life and death, wellness and sickness, renewal and decay. And envy. See, I even did research. There. Everything you (n)ever wanted to learn about green, but were too afraid to ask.

---

[1] "Red Enhances Men's Attraction To Women, Psychological Study Reveals" ScienceDaily.com, October 28, 2008 and "Wearing Red 'Boosts Attraction'", BBC.co.uk, October 28, 2008. Referencing a study from the University of Rochester published October 28, 2008 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

[2] "Women Prefer Men in Red, Study Shows" CNN.com, August 6, 2010 and "Women Attracted Men in Red, Research Shows" ScienceDaily.com, August 3, 2010. Referencing a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General on August 2, 2010 by the University of Rochester.

[3] Cora Lynn Daniels, et al., covers this in Encyclopædia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World (Volume III), p. 1273, University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu.

[4] "Color: The Kaleidoscope of Human Emotion", Jewish Heritage Online Magazine, referencing Judges 5:30.

[5] Feldman, David Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?, HarperPerennial; 1st Perennial Library Edition February 19, 1990.

In Memorium: A Quiet Eulogy

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

- Dylan Thomas

There is a death permeating, slowly - over the course of the past year especially - that
hasn't really been spoken about and, unless you're in the business, you wouldn't really know to think about it. Really, to a lot of you, this kind of death seems like an obvious transition, something that of course makes sense in our modern times but there is something distinctly sad about this death, this passing.

I speak, in no uncertain terms, about 35mm film projectors.

In cinemas.

Back in high school, I used to work at the Cinemas in Chatswood. It was a pretty good job for  someone my age, with a decent wage ($10.50p/hour) and the staff benefit of two free movie tickets every day. They didn't stack, but still, it was pretty great for dating.

At the bottom of the food chain were people like me - snacks salespeople, ticket tearers, cinema cleaners - and then supervisors and managers. But somewhere in the middle, were the mysterious folk known as Projectionists. These guys got to dress in black polo shirts and spent the whole day up in the Projection Room where they would stick the reels of film onto the projector and click on, making sure to change the reel at the right time. For every film. In every cinema.

I had only ever seen the Projection Room once, on my tour of the cinema when I first got my job. It was at the top of the fire stairs. It was the goal of almost every popcorn monkey on staff to become a Projectionist.

You worked with the films.

You were the bringer of magic to the masses!

And, more importantly, you worked on your own.

Away from other staff.

Away from the managers.

Away. From. The. Public.

It was basically Hoyts' version of Living the Dream.

Movies are such a big part of who I am that this job was perfect for me. Unfortunately, I ended up leaving Hoyts before I got to Projectionist, but that's a story for another day.

I remember being awed by the dark, musty room at the top of the fire stairs, above all the cinemas. It smelled like film varnish and sticky tape. The loud "click-click-clicking" and shuttering of the projectors echoed throughout the cement walls of it. It was the tiny, magic place where dreams spewed forth in a stream of light, onto the screen and into my brain.

There was something inherently - again, for lack of better words - magical about seeing the reels change, sticking the different parts of film together to make sure the film was snipped together right. There was also a joy in keeping tiny, discarded pieces of snipped off film as a memento from whatever film - it was usually the "3, 2, beep" from the start of the film, but still, it was a part of the film and it was yours.

A friend of mine - we'll call her Emily - still works as a Hoyts Projectionist. Recently, she told me something upsetting.

"We're getting rid of all the old projectors," she said. "They're replacing them with digital versions."

"What?" I could hardly believe it.

"Yeah, it's all going onto hard drives. We even called our distributors to tell them not to send us anymore film."

It was impossible. Replace the Projectionist?

"They have me working candy bar now," she said, taking a sip of her drink. "I get to wear a manager's uniform and boss the underlings around, but still."

"But you still have to go up and press the play button, right?" I edged closer. "Right?"

"Nope," she sighed here. "It's all on an automated schedule. We just sometimes have to go up and make sure it's all running okay."

She said she wanted to show me, and that she had something to give me. We left the bar and we walked to the cinema. I hadn't been in the building in years but I remembered the smell of the trash room elevator. She swiped her card and we went up. Magical Projection Level 3A.

I got a small nervous excitement - I was going to see the Projection Room again! The elevator doors opened onto the cold. I remembered the constant air conditioning to keep the projectors cool and to prevent the film from burning or catching alight. But this was a different cool. I knew this cool.

This was Server Room cool - the air conditioned sanctity of the IT guy's domain. Emily switched the light on and where there were once rows of these huge, classical behemoths stood boxes with flashing lights and a small screen, shooting out the film onto the screen. Next to it stood another giant black box that I recognized as a hard drive hub.

"Oh, geez," I said, looking at it. "It's so cold."

"Yeah, doesn't have the same mystique, does it?"

"Not at all."

I turned and Emily fetched something out from her locker. An bright, orange wheel wrapped in dark brown.

"Here," she said, handing the weighty thing over to me. "I found it in the garbage and I just couldn't leave it there. I saw it and thought of you and knew you want it."

What I held in my hands, dear readers, was a reel of 35mm film.

"What's on it?" I didn't take my eyes off it.

"Nothing," she said, closing her locker. "It's a dud reel, nothing on it, a tester or whatever. We always get at least one. And they always have that lady in the first 3 frames."

I looked at it in the light and, sure enough, a lady in a red blazer smiled back at me and then an endless nothing of varnished brown.

"It's heavy, but it's yours if you want it."

I couldn't thank her enough. 
I rode home on the train with it in my lap, smiling. Scrawled on the side was, "STOP! Do not put BLUE FILM on here." And I smiled. I didn't know what blue film was, but I didn't care. There was something about it all that made me smile.

So, goodnight, I say, to you Projectors and Projectionists and 35mm film. Rest easy. No more are the days of cigarette burns at the top of the screen to indicate the change of reel; no more are the days of scratches and burns and character in the film print; no more can Tyler Durden splice into you single frames of pornography to shock the movie-goers and their children.

It may seem like a little thing to you, dear readers, but to me, it's everything.

Mahalo.

New Link for the Podcast!

Some of you may have noticed a new look off the right over here in the same vicinity as my Travel Blog and my Twitter Feed. It is the link where you can download - if you are so inclined to hear me talk for about an hour - the Podcast I do with Hell is Other People creator, writer and director Luke Sheehan, founder of Compound Fiasco Productions.

We pretty much sit down, talk about whatever comes to mind, have a few laughs and generally have fun. And, if you tweet at us (#FiascoCast), comment on Facebook for us or any such thing, we will give you a shout out! We are always looking for listener interaction so if there is ANYTHING you want us to talk about, PLEASE feel free to let us know!

I will keep you all posted as to when we are recording via either here or on my Twitter, so don't be afraid to comment or tweet!

Especially for our favourite segment: #BadMovieLines! This week's topic, if you want to participate, are the films Monopoly and Battleship. Some we have so far are:
- "Don't piss off the banker."

&

- "You can't sink America's battleship."

Go! Think of the WORST lines possible! ESPECIALLY if they're puns! They WILL get mentioned on the show!

Enjoy!

Mahalo.