pacman

Spain? I'm sure I read that somewhere.

Unlike that "ne'er-do-well" seven....

Walnut?

If you think there were some poor choices in my last post, check this lot out. The Trip To Italy. Rob Brydon & Steve Coogan take a gourmet tour of Italy where Coogan isn't as nasty as he was in The Trip. He's still a pain in the arse though & the writers take their revenge on him by having the pretty girl he fancies sleep with that Welsh sex symbol Rob Brydon. (That's sarcasm in case you have never heard of him.) I didn't see that twist coming (how could you?) but not even that can save the franchise. I expect to see another Trip movie made one day but I won't be going. It was line ball that I went to see this & it was only because I love Italy that I made the effort. Under The Skin. Scarlett Johansson cruises the streets of Scotland in a van picking up locals. It is all unscripted with the dialogue ad-libbed. I can quite believe that but I am sceptical they didn't know they were stepping into a movie. In fact I don't buy that at all but it has a certain home made feeling about it. She seduces each of them then she "consumes" them. Scarlett is an alien & her partners fall into dark liquid & disappear. Before that each of them gets naked with Scarlett, I could deal with that, I could deal with them sporting erections, but I was put off with the last guy running through the outdoors naked, erect & deformed. I'm not a prude but I felt uncomfortable with this unfortunate looking bloke (when the camera first turns on his face, everyone in the theatre flinched) being exploited like that. It felt very voyeuristic & it didn't add anything to the film. If you like your sci-fi "weird", this is for you. Oh & Scarlett gets her gear off also. Bless her. Edge of Tomorrow. If it wasn't for the fact that Tom Cruise wouldn't be in a low budget film I wouldn't have been talked into seeing this. I was fairly confident it would be entertaining & even a bit exciting. It turned out to be a military version of Ground Hog Day but Tom is no Bill Murray & there wasn't a hint of humour or irony which might have elevated this to something enjoyable. All that money spent only to see Tom shot dead 100 plus times. Hmmm, Tom being killed over & over, that has got to be the silver lining. Frank. Rhymes with wank, how appropriate. I commented on this in the previous thread, it has some redeeming features but again, it's a struggle to recommend it. It's a movie about a guy with mental health issues who thinks he is musically talented but is just a delusional idiot. Sounds like a few recording stars we all know. 22 Jump Street. This is considered hilariously funny by Gen Y & the kids coming after them. Fuck me, I despair for the future when anyone can consider this even remotely amusing let alone "good". My young friend tells me the scene in the police station where Channing Tatum carries on like a pork chop is regarded highly by his peers. I found that scene to be utter torture which dragged on way too long without any humorous merit whatsoever. If this makes me a grumpy old man I will wear the badge with pride. It's about the worst film I've ever seen & only the execrable A Million Ways To Die In The West saves it from the title of Worst Film Ever. Dozens of shocking reviews for that saved me the horror of watching it. Calvary. I enjoyed this. Brendan Gleeson is perfect as the Catholic priest who is told in the confessional box he is going to be killed within a week. He is chosen because he represents the church that wrecked this man's life. We aren't shown who the would-be killer is & the film introduces us to all the possible suspects. Everyone of them has an issue with the church. The suspense builds to the film's shocking conclusion. Films this good don't come along nearly often enough. Recommended. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. This is better than OK, I really liked it. The film is a metaphor for any conflict involving a clash of civilisations. It could have been ridiculous but it's intelligently made with the sympathy vote going firmly in favour of the apes. It's a prequel to the original Planet of the Apes being set centuries before that movie. Obviously things didn't go so well but that happens long after this film concludes. I have no doubt there will be another film to fill in the gap. And I'll be there if it is as good as this. Snowpiercer. An improbable action/sci-fi flick from South Korea. An all star cast & a large budget makes this something to see. It's not for everybody but I liked it. Lucy. Luc Besson in top form. He really has the most fertile imagination & it starts off with so much promise. I wish he could have maintained his focus for the entire film, it could have been a great movie but finishes up being silly. Another sci-fi film only for the fans. A Most Wanted Man. The last movie made starring Philip Seymour Hoffman & the major reason why I went to see it. I was shocked at how unhealthy Hoffman looked who smokes throughout the film. It's another film based on a John Le Carre novel who once again is employed as an advisor. I don't know if it is his input but his films move so slowly & lack the intensity a good action flick needs. Hoffman is great, the movie should be better than it is. Still worth a look. Guardians of the Galaxy. More like Guardians Against Quality. This is supposed to be Marvels new approach to making movies where they use wit & irony to take a self deprecating look at their heroes. With a wink to the audience, they mean to offer us a fun experience where they acknowledge how ridiculous their plots are but we are all in on the joke. At least that's what I think their plan was because it doesn't come out like that. I can deal with the idea that a talking raccoon is the smart guy in the group but without any of the promised humour, the idea gets lame fast. He does crack one joke about getting some unfortunate prisoner to remove his artificial leg but when he reveals he was only asking for it in jest, not only couldn't I laugh, I was thinking of how much better the movie would be if he finished up intergalactic road-kill. Any sci-fi flick that relies on 1000's & 1000's of CGI space ships & the good guys are attacked by another bunch of attackers while they are attacking the enemy & it is completely impossible to tell who is who is a major fail in my book. Ridiculous. What We Do In The Shadows. A New Zealand made faux documentary about the lives of three vampires who share a house has so much promise & comic potential. I really wanted to like this & I don't like to condemn it too much. It almost succeeds in its aims but in the end it just wasn't funny enough & it lacks the polish a bigger budget would have allowed. If only there were more & better jokes I could forgive it for anything but I can't recommend it. Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Nice to look at but utterly ridiculous & lame. I have never seen any movie with so many cliches all piled on top of each other. It really was a test of my patience. There are some attractive girls in it & plenty of nudity but that doesn't come anywhere near to compensating for the cliche-ridden dialogue or the the 1950's misogyny. If anyone suggests watching this run for your life. I think that's all so far this year. There are some regrets about films missed but I'm in no hurry. Most of them arrive on TV at some stage. And I can always buy the DVD. I would just as much prefer to see a new movie, there are good ones released all the time.

Since I quit the rat race I have had time to see more movies than I ever did when I was working seven days a week. This thread got me thinking about the films I've seen this year. There have been the usual mix of the good, the bad & the ugly. And despite reading reviews & watching film programs I still saw more dogs than I ever wished to. Part of the reason is because I am mentoring a young guy still in his teens & we often go together. Most of the worst choices were films he was particularly interested to see. I don't mind, I always keep an open mind that I will find something new & interesting & to his credit, he has watched films I suggested that he never thought he would see. And he really tries to get into them, even when they aren't that good. Here's a couple I saw this year with a comment about each: Dallas Buyers Club. Great film with some excellent acting, both McConaughey & Jared Leto won Academy Awards for their roles. It's a variation of the action man flick with much more heart. And it really happened. Her. As good as any film I saw all year. Joaquin Phoenix becomes infatuated with the voice of his computer operating system. A clever premise brilliantly done. The Wolf of Wall Street. Just a great romp. Three hours carried completely by Leo DiCaprio who I felt should have won the Oscar for his performance. It's completely debauched with more drug taking & sex than I've seen in a long time & it's all based on fact. Or rather the facts as presented by Jordan Belfort who I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw him. The Monuments Men. The Second World War as seen through the eyes of Hollywood. It really happened but this doesn't do the story justice. It could have been so much more. The Armstrong Lie. A doco about a narcissistic bike rider who destroyed the careers of every other bike rider in the world for a long time. And even when he was exposed he was still so self centred he wanted to come back & do it again. It must be a good documentary because it brought up such strong feelings of anger in me. All I wanted to do was stick a 44 Magnum up his arse & keep pulling the trigger. And I am not a violent person. Wadjda. The first film ever made inside Saudi Arabia. At face value it is completely lame, it is all about a ten year old girl wanting a bicycle. Once I had watched it I realised it was the most devastating attack on Islam & the repressed lives of Saudi women. I rate it almost the best film I saw all year. I can't get enough of this fly-on-the-wall type expose of what goes on in places like this. It's almost as good as A Separation, the Iranian movie I saw a few years ago. Half of a Yellow Sun. Set in Nigeria at the time of their war with Biafra where they starved the Biafrans & added the country to their own. It could have been so much better, the producers did their best with a limited budget. Plus much of the dialogue can't be heard, I guess they couldn't afford good microphones. Nymphomaniac. Four hours of Lars Von Trier, not for the faint hearted. Plus it is pornography disguised as art. Not that there's anything wrong with close ups of genitalia being both sucked & fucked but you wouldn't want to take your mother. It actually has a half decent plot & comes to a shocking conclusion but I find it hard to recommend to anyone. Even to our bunch of perverts. If you're after sexual thrills, save hours of your life by googling porn. Noah. Apparently God can hear you if you yell loud enough. Russell Crowe does his best to sound deeply religious but in the end this is just trite. The Grand Budapest Hotel. It's good. Very good but I didn't enjoy it as much as some critics who raved about it. It's the perfect movie for couples, especially older couples. Ralph Fiennes is perfect in his role. All sense of reality is discarded when the acclaimed director Wes Anderson resorts to two dimensional cartoons to portray some scenes. I don't know what to make of that, it fits the artificial edifice of the entire production but the film is reduced to farce. The Invisible Woman. The story of Charles DIckens' mistress who was unacknowledged her whole life. For those who like period pieces, it's great. And Ralph Fiennes shows again what a fine actor he is. He brings old Charlie to life. Fading Gigolo. Woody Allen back on form. I don't know exactly why I liked this, it's not my usual cup of tea but there's an honesty about the participants that is moving. And I never saw Woody as a good actor before as he always plays the neurotic New York Jew but here he changed my mind. He completely dominates his scenes & I doubt there's an actor on Earth who could have taken the limelight from him. That's really saying something but that's my opinion of how good he is in this. Young & Beautiful. More like young & stupid. I know what the aim was but the lead girl in this just doesn't have the physical presence to really carry it off. I can imagine a young Brigette Bardot playing the part of the 17yo student who turns to prostitution. She had the look that would have you squirming in your seat desperate to save her from herself. This young lady, as nice as she is, left me thinking if she's that silly, she can have it. Chef. Why would anyone want to put themself through this? It is as dramatic as a bad episode of the Brady Bunch. The only reason why I went is because my young friend was interested to see a film written by Jon Favreau who also takes the lead role. Favreau is the director of the Iron Man series plus other films but this was as far removed from that genre as it is possible to get. Anytime he criticises me for a movie choice I can remind him it was his call to see Chef. Pitiful rubbish. The Zero Theorem. Weird but great. Terry Gilliam's first film in a long time & this is exactly what he does so well. Christoph Waltz was an inspired choice for the lead role. It's not for everyone (please note it is sci-fi based) but it worked for me. Funny I can't remember much about the end but I do know I didn't regret taking the time to see it. I think Waltz can take much of the credit for that, I can't take my eyes off him when he is on screen. That takes me half way into the year. I will come back & comment on some of the more recent films I saw later.

I will go see Gone Girl, advance reviews are very good. Plus Gillian Flynn, the author of the book has also written the screenplay. That doesn't guarantee success but she has used the same narrative device from the book. It means the movie won't be a re-imagined creation by someone who is not on the same wave length as Ms Flynn. I venture to guess that what you want is at odds with the movies available. I think there are few films that appeal to both Thais & farangs. I suppose a Block Buster action flick is the closest you can hope for but a constant diet of films that are starved of an intelligent plot would grow rather wearisome after a while.

There are plenty of exotic cars in LOS. Bangkok traffic must be the most unsuitable place in the world for such high powered machines but it has nothing to do with practicality, it's all about 'face'. One guy who may have wished to be driving something else was the son & heir to the Red Bull fortune when he crashed his Ferrari into a motorcycle cop killing him. I never did hear what happened to him but I doubt he ever spent time in prison.

In a previous post I made the above observation. I was surprised to read an interview with a fellow from Sony's camera department who had this to say about their new camera modules - Ishizuka-san admitted to me that QX is still (unsurprisingly) something of a niche, but people are buying and using them, and they're doing so in refreshingly unexpected ways. According to Mr Ishizuka, contrary to initial expectations, most QX buyers don't tend to attach the modules to their smartphones, but prefer to use them remotely, at arm's length and beyond. Apparently, we're told, the QX cameras are a particular hit among astrophotographers. Suddenly, a product ostensibly designed to coax smartphone users into 'serious' photography has become a new (albeit small for now) market segment all on its own. Astrophotography? I can think of other heavenly bodies they can be used to photograph.....

Tailor shops were there but what I really remember were the VD clinics. One on every corner. Or so it seemed. I vaguely remember being stopped by tailors standing on the footpath but having just travelled through Indonesia, Singapore & Malaysia I am pretty sure I was stopped there too. And I can't remember in which country they were the most persistent. Some things never change & I am sure they will still be bothering tourists in another 40 years time.

The corner of Sukhumvit & Soi 4 as it was in 1974 doesn't exist today. Sukhumvit was re-routed sometime later, I well remember the Hotel Nana was on that corner. It is now some 50 metres down Soi 4. Nana Plaza was still to be built, the BIG venue to go to for action back then was the Grace Hotel on Soi 3. GG action of course, the LBs were somewhere in the four block maze that was the original Patpong. Patpong Two was the gay area. Those were the days when live shows were the norm, stories of what went on in the gay clubs seem unimaginable by today's standards.

If I said the stack would be a mile high that would seem ridiculous. One trillion dollars in hundred dollar notes would actually stand 64 miles high. Imagine depositing that at your local bank....

I've also been to Kathmandu twice, I remember a small town with one set of traffic lights. There weren't many cars & the alley ways & backlanes were impassable because they served a second function as a public toilet. In every other way it was a lovely place with nice people however the local food was the worst I have ever come across anywhere in the world. I walked into a restaurant catering to locals, or rather I bent down to get through a very low door before I walked in & looked at this communal pot on the stove, took one smell & left. I believe things are better now. Nearly forgot, some of the Nepalese girls were beautiful looking.

Ahhhh.... thanks Willie. Of course I was thinking of Enoch Powell. I jumped to my conclusion when I read JD's post about him going to hell.

The right wing media would often drag out Ian Paisley & his warnings whenever they wanted to frighten the public about the danger of foreigners. I remember his "river of blood" speech, it was very effective in alarming the masses. If Ian had directed his warnings against angry young Muslims he would have been more relevant but many of his dire predictions never came to pass. I always liked his passion but grew to realise he was a dinosaur with a racial agenda. I'm sure there are many people who still carry his concerns but no one dares say them.

I am pleased he has been convicted of culpable homicide. If the court wasn't bending over backwards to be seen to be scrupulously fair, he really should have been found guilty of murder. The highest murder charge, no, but the second level, yes. All that crap about not knowing who was behind the door & he didn't notice Rena wasn't laying next to him, who did he think had locked the door?? And who takes their phone to the toilet at 3 in the morning (and locks the door behind them) if they weren't ringing for help? Then he breaks down the door to club her head in saying he couldn't see who he was hitting!! The guy deserves everything he gets. I'm sure his cell mates will enjoy their new companion. And whatever money he has will soon go in order to keep himself alive. I am assured by friends who have been inside that will be the case. I just hope he doesn't get solitary.

Oscar's erratic behaviour is a clear indicator of his guilt IMO. He will definitely go down for culpable homicide, he may not have been able to see through the toilet door but he bloody well knew who he was bashing with that cricket bat.

I didn't know Tory had another meaning, I thought it was a slang term connected to the word "conservatory". Here's my question - if you were to stack one hundred dollar bills on top of each other, how high would the stack be by the time it reached a trillion dollars?

Brazil? It's not Oz but India? hmmm, dunno.... Naah, it's Brazil, that place is enormous.

An understandable reaction TC, I felt the same myself. However these guys were the subject of much investigation & they were found to have nothing to hide. There was a very long article written about it in the Financial Review which I read most of (it was three or four pages) & the writer gave some explanation as to how they did it but the people involved would not divulge any of their secrets. The sums of money they were playing with were extraordinary & it was the massive transfers of money around the world that tipped off the authorities to something going on. They were suspected of everything from dealing in arms to drugs to whatever but it was all made from gambling. The tax office chased them for years & years & finished with nothing. Hobart finished up with a world class museum.

That's a logical guess TC but it's not correct. What he did to make millions was work out how to gamble & win. It was all based on maths, he was assisted by a couple of colleagues who are all retired millionaires today. They are banned from every casino in the world but I read they also won big at horse racing & sports bets. They evolved some punting method which placed bets on every race & event where the mathematical probabilities were in their favour. Having enjoyed a flutter myself over the years & having heard of such schemes which every experienced gambler is quick to dismiss as ridiculous, it came as a shock to discover someone had actually done it. Someone from Tasmania no less & he gave the city the Museum of New & Old Art as a little bequest. A 100 million dollar gift sounds good but very affordable after they beat the tax office over a claim of something like a billion dollars. It's one of those stories you couldn't make up because no one would believe you.

Yes BB, he did something considered impossible. In fact, why the question is so interesting is even after it was revealed, many people still couldn't believe it. I scratch my head & wonder how.

I can't really be certain. If it was three stories built in the old tropical timber bungalow style I might have gone right past it. I am sure I would have noticed a modern building but it's too long ago for me to be certain.

Announced prices are $350 for the QX30 & $400 for the QX1. That's US dollars with a release date of November. Don't forget with the QX1 that doesn't include a lens.

No, I can't recall any "proper" hotel in Pattaya. There were no high rise buildings from memory. Do you know when the Ocean View was built? And which mall are you referring to?

OMG! There's some nasty comments about Joan posted after that article. I remember the quotes mentioned, I think Joan did overstep the mark with some of her later attacks but it would not be fair to focus only on them. Maybe her age affected her judgement, I dunno. Watching the main news reports from the US on local TV I am surprised how they are only replaying her most mild comments. I haven't seen every news story about her from the US but in those I have seen, there's not even a hint of her real comedy. Contrast that with the coverage of her death here where some of her most outrageous rude comments are being replayed on every bulletin. They are beeping out the F-bomb, Joan did like to use it a lot. The funniest segment is one where she throws the award presented to her at an Australian TV award show over her shoulder while saying how touched she was to receive it. Rather than feeling insulted by her behaviour, the audience are in stitches of laughter. And I cannot think of anything that better illustrates the difference between what we find funny compared to other cultures. No one is right, no one is wrong, it is just the way Australia is. The more outrageous the better & we love Joan.