movies: murder on the orient express

Sometimes there's a movie so absolutely perfectly wonderfully over the top that you really can't understand how it can be improved... then someone announces that they're remaking it. And you wonder a) why they'd bother and b) what they can possibly think they'll add to the original.

Murder on the Orient Express doesn't really answer either of those questions, as far as I'm concerned.

Let's start with a somewhat obvious admission... I LOVE the 1974 version of Murder on the Orient Express with a passion. It's full of (at the time) big name actors, it has one of the best Poirots, Albert Finney, and while the end is a little tone deaf when set against the rest of the movie, Sidney Lumet gives a masterclass on how to put a bunch of people in a confined space, stay within that space and make it interesting. It keeps a ticking clock firmly in the background and the finale has the kind of denouement that I expect from a Poirot story, with everyone gathered around to hear Hercule let them all know exactly how clever he is.

The 2017 version? Well... it's pretty.

No, in all seriousness, it's a beautiful looking movie, with both cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos and the set and production design (with the possible exception of a hideously blatent product placement for Godiva Chocolate... who unsurprisingly have a whole selection of "Murder on the Orient Express" chocolates on their website) pulling out all the stops, this movie is a delight to look at. There are beautiful uses of glass reflection and refraction in several scenes and the way the camera moves through spaces is gorgeous.

However the whole thing is very clearly 90% computer generated. At least anything outside of the train. That's one of the things about the original, they give you an establishing shot to show where the train is and then you're inside the train and you don't even notice that you can't really see very much outside the windows. Mostly because you're paying attention to the people and the story.

This time it all has that same slightly stilted and hollow feeling that CGI backgrounds still provide.

And in this movie Hercule Poirot can't seem to sit in one place for more than 30 seconds at a time. There are several things that Poirot would not, under any circumstances, do. These include:

• climbing on top of a train
• engaging in a chase scene
• hand to hand combat
• leaving a perfectly warm and pleasant train to question a suspect in the snow
• revealing to people that he knows things before it's advantageous to do so.

And yet, Kenneth Branagh as both director and star has him doing all of those things. Don't get me wrong, Branagh makes for an interesting version of Poirot, but he's not especially Poirot-like as a person. Most of that comes from Branagh's physicality, he's not a fussy little man in the way that, for example, Finney played him. And yes, Peter Ustinov wasn't small, but he captured the fussiness of Poirot.

Branagh does have the fabulous moustache though. Even if I'm pretty sure you can see the lace front in a couple of shots.

As far as the rest of the cast, firstly it's a much larger overall cast from the original (that may be because these days you have to acknowledge even the people who show up on screen for half a second, whereas you didn't back in the day), but they've still decided to combine one of the less active characters with one of the mains in a way that's slightly strange. They've also messed around with names, ages, backstories and the like... none of which is a major drama, and some of which was required by the casting of certain actors in certain roles, so overall I'm not really bothered by it.

However they do skim over or simplify certain elements of plot (or rearrange them in a much less interesting way) in order to, as previously stated, include a stupid partial chase scene and a moment or two of combat, as well as shoehorn in some Poirot backstory about a woman.

And they still come in about 15 minutes shorter than the 1974 version.

As far as the 2017 cast is concerned, it feels much less balanced between all the characters, possibly because not everyone's interrogation seems to be given the same weight and importance. However Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley and Judi Dench all put in good performances, although with possibly only Depp surpassing his 1974 equivalent... he manages to make Ratchett quite unlikable. Pfeiffer comes close a couple of times and has a nice little sequence at the end that her counterpart never had which certainly helps.

A number of the others seem to fade into the background more or less, and oddly both the Count and Countess are essentially missing from the whole movie with the exception of a couple of scenes. I mean, within the logic of the movie it makes sense, and I'm not sure they show up all that much more in the original, but they just seem totally absent (and forgettable when they do show up). It was also disappointing that while they made better explanations for certain characters motivations, the rest of the character was so completely overlooked that it didn't even matter (I'm thinking specifically of Penélope Cruz in this instance, but the same could be said for Derek Jacobi).

One of the things that irked me more than anything was Poirot giving away what he knew randomly while talking to people... it makes no sense both from a story perspective and a character one. Maybe both the writer, Michael Green, and Branagh wanted to keep the audience in the loop... but that's not what I want out of a Poirot story... I want the big reveal at the end. And that was there, if a little joyless at times, but some of it's power had been lost along the way. Which also wasn't helped by the fact that they skimmed right across certain clues and moments (the grease stain, the divorce, amongst others). If they'd spent more time on the actual plot and less on ridiculousness like climbing on trains and chasing people, they probably would have had time for that.

Likewise, I understand the desire to show who Poirot is at the beginning of the film, because not everyone is going to know exactly who he is, but it just felt... tacked on. And it just pads out the run time, meaning they have less time to spend on actual plot, character and motive.

Thinking about it, I think the problem may be that the movie doesn't feel smart. It certainly wants to think it is... but it's not sharing that with the rest of us. The characters spend too much time giving each other knowing looks which just telegraph things far too much.

All I can really say is if you want to see a great version of Murder on the Orient Express, get your hands on the 1974 version.

yani's rating: 2 moustaches out of 5

photo saturday: lines over lines

I said it once before... and this week just reiterated it... three sessions of DnD in a week, good, four sessions, a little too much.

Also I DM'd two of the games (bringing my DMing total up to four sessions) which didn't help, that's so much more tiring than just playing because you've got to be concentrating the whole time. It was pretty good though... even if the second game I ran I was mostly running from the memory of the first and only time I played it, so I kind of fluffed my way through the last encounter according to what actually is supposed to happen. But everyone seemed to have a good time, so that's the main thing.

I also realise that I need to only take stuff with me I know I'm going to need on any given day... because I really just have too much crap right now. I mean, not really crap, because it's all useful, but there's just too much to lug it all around at once. We'll see.

But the fact that I had four sessions this week meant I was out of the house on Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday day and Thursday night... so I was very pleased to just stay home and do nothing on Friday.

All in all it was a week that seemed to go remarkably fast for the most part.

Today could have been challenging... it was the Norwood Christmas Pageant, and you may remember how spectacularly well that went last year... and by well I mean badly... but then we were only a week out from Ma injuring her shoulder at the time. But at least today we managed to get our collective acts together.

This did involve Ma coming down super early and leaving my place in enough time to get to the supermarket by 7:30 when they open... and then getting out before everything got too crazy. Which meant that we were heading into town before 10am, which is kind of unheard of.

Ma dropped me at the bank so that I could deposit all my coinage... well, not all, but a good chunk of just the silver stuff. Once again, that coin machine hates me/doesn't like taking large amounts of coins/has a mind of it's own. It dumped everything out the first time for some reason I still don't understand, then got to a "you've submitted too many coins" and spat about a quarter of them back at me, then finally sorted itself out and let me process them all.

There weren't supposed to be any gold coins amongst them, but I did end up with a couple of $2 coins... along with 232 fifty cent coins, 347 twenties, 202 tens and 158 fives... which comes to a grand total of $217.50. Much less impressive than previous instances, but like I said, no gold coins.

From there we headed off to find the last few Christmas presents on Ma's list... which we managed fairly well and without too much drama. Although we're clearly well into the "people lose the ability to complete simple tasks" portion of the year already. But that was mostly other shoppers rather than staff, so that's at least a bonus.

Thankfully, that's the last of the Christmas presents... or at least the last things that I actually have to be involved in the purchasing of.

Then it was off to Burger Theory for a fairly early lunch and then we moved the car down to the Hindley Street end of things and went to the movies down at GU House (more on that shortly).

And that was about it... it doesn't sound like a hell of a lot, and really I'm not sure it was, but at least we got some stuff sorted.

Oh, and I'm sure everyone is already aware, but it's just a month until Christmas...

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photo saturday: november fork on the road

Guess what... there was a Fork on the Road today... it's been five years (technically the anniversary is on November 30, but close enough) since the very first one in Victoria Square, which I dragged The Proto Nuthouse down to. It's also the first one we've been to since July last year.

Not really surprising considering the amount of crap that's happened in the last year, but they also moved to having them mostly on Sundays, which didn't help.

And of course, because this is the most amount of time I've spent in the sun for about nine months, I'm already a bit sunburned.

But more on that later...

This week... well, parts of it went in unexpected directions... mostly the DnD parts to be honest...

I ended up running a second game on Wednesday... which was actually the same module I ran a couple of weeks ago as it's the only one I've actually prepped. But I ran it for four people I really like, so that always helps. I managed to make some of the changes I came up with after the first time, and partially because of that and partially because there were only four of them, I at least knocked some of their characters unconscious.

Then Thursday we didn't get to play our regular Thursday characters... which annoyed me... doubly so because while I love the regular Thursday crew of people, I'm not a big fan of these new characters. We'll have to see what happens, but I either need to play a completely different character (maybe a fighter... since we're a little low on front line characters in this combo).

We did end up doing some role playing as those characters even though we weren't playing them... given things that happened the last time we played. That is one of the issues with playing Adventurer's League games... there's not all that much time to do things other than the adventure in front of you. The fact that we've managed the amount of role play we have says a lot... even if we had to do some of it out of play sessions.

I also had my chiro appointment this week... which was the second to last one before the end of the year. Yeah... that's a thing to think about.

Today was a little all over the shop... Ma was getting her hair did, so I was on my own for shopping. And that meant I really didn't get my ass into gear like normal. So by the time that I made it back home, Ma was already here.

We headed out to have a wander around Target, pick up a couple of things... but mostly to kill time before Fork on the Road started. I did pick up some new shoes... well, new as in new versions of the ones I bought last year and have grown fond of.

Then we had to try and FIND Fork on the Road. Which previously has been simple. But this time not so much. It turned out to be much further back from the road than it was the last time it was in that spot... and because we were on the opposite side of the road as we went past... and we ended up going all the way around the North Adelaide, then up to the Morphett Street bridge, because coming back around and finally finding it tucked away amongst the trees.

I don't know if it was just a very spread out location, or if there was just a lack of trucks, but it did seem a little bit light on for people, at least at the start. But then there are also about 150 different things going on around the city this weekend, so that may have been part of it.

We ended up trying a number of things, and the photos in this post correspond with the order...

We started with a Notorious P.I.G toasted sandwich from Cheesy Street, then the Bucket O'Balls from Delectaballs (I'll be honest, it was mostly full of corn chips, with only two actual meatballs... but the whole thing was tasty).

Then we stopped for a Bubble Tea (not pictured, because it's not a very interesting photo, but it was a very tasty lemon Bubble Tea)... and then headed in a dessert direction. We started with dessert fries from a new outfit, Hipster Chipster. And yes, dessert fries... they're savoury fries, covered in soft serve icecream and chocolate sauce, with little fried apple bites on top. The whole thing is really like dipping your Maccas fries in your sundae, which I haven't done a hell of a lot, mostly because I hardly ever get sundaes. And they were wrong... so, so, so wrong... so wrong in fact that they were VERY right. Totally insane but perfect.

And we finished up with way too many of the honey puffs from the eponymous Honey Puff Ladies... they're really, really good, but we really only needed the smaller amount.

So that was my day... full of food, a little bit sunburned around the edges, but generally okay.

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photo saturday: words

Words, words, words.

I feel like they've been used well this week... and badly... and sometimes not at all.

People are weird, right... it's not just me being me is it? People are just weird. And I don't always mean that in the negative sense... I'm pretty weird at the best of times, and all the good people tend to be a particular kind of weird. But people are weird.

Can you tell I'm having an introspective five minutes? Not necessarily a deep one, but yeah, I'm a little in my head right now.

Anyway...

Let's see what happened this week... although it's nothing too stunning to be honest...

• The usual amount of DnD... although I did actually level two different characters up from Tier 1 to Tier 2 this week, so that's something. And a roleplaying thing happened on Thursday that will have repercussions for that group, I just need to work out how my character will react... to a couple of different things actually.
• Friday was Haircut Day... I'm still not completely comfortable driving up into the hills, and stupidly I took a wrong turn this time, whereas the first time I had no problems... it was also a little calmer this time as it was only Tink's youngest this time, not the pair of them. The haircut itself was same old same old, because of course it was.
• I got Ma's calendar bound, complete with the calendar cut out and hanger... although I did have a false start because when I took it into the little Officeworks in the city they didn't have any idea what I was talking about. Fortunately the one down the road from me got it done.
• The weather in general and hayfever in particular can kiss my ass. You gotta love a snuffly nose and itchy eyes when it's around 34°C. Actually today wasn't completely foul, well, yes it was, but at least it was heavily overcast and 33°C, somewhat better, but it's the general humidity that's really less fun.
• It is 6 weeks until Christmas. Panic accordingly.

Today was... how many different ways are there to say "average"...

Mediocre, moderate, ordinary, regular, common, commonplace, familiar, humdrum, mainstream, middling, standard.

So quite a few actually.

Today was middling.

We did the usual shopping thing, bought somewhat more than usual, but seemingly less actual things. I think I bought too much cheese.

And the only decent checkout girl was actually back on a checkout, which was fantastic.

From there it was all Christmas related whatever. Well, almost all. We started with a trip to Big W, which was perhaps less fruitful... and then went down the road to Kmart, which was fruitful. Nothing exciting, just those little "oh, we need another little something for BLANK", or whatever. So that sorted a few little bits of things out.

And then we stopped off at Haighs on the way back to my place... which was a little more intense to be honest.

But that's about it really.

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movies: thor - ragnarok

Thor, God of Thunder is back... and he's bringing with him Ragnarok... the end of things. And damn, but Thor: Ragnarok is one hell of a ride.

We're not stuck on Earth, or Asgard... and there are no dark brooding elves... no... this movie is bright and bold and brash and bubblegum and pulling it's inspirations from the 70's and 80's. And doing a damn good job.

Director Taika Waititi has managed to create the ultimate Marvel movie... it's fun, light, full of action and doesn't take itself too seriously. I feel like part of why it works (if something I read online is to be believed) is that Waititi had the actors improvise about 80% of the dialogue... and it shows, in the best possible way.

Everything seems real and the humour often doesn't feel like it's something that's been workshopped and refined, but genuine moments. And yes, it lacks the heartfelt moment that some of the other Marvel movies have had (I'm thinking mostly of either of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, since they've mixed pathos and humour the best of all the Marvel movies), but that's not what this movie is... it's a big, bold, fantasy action movie, and it does that exceptionally well.

Returning, naturally, is Chris Hemsworth as the titular thunder god, and even the new haircut (which appears towards the start of the second act I think) makes sense here... this is Thor stripped back to basics and as much of the theme of this movie seems to be, shedding the old in place of the new. Also, Hemsworth looks the best he's ever looked at Thor in this movie... I mean, there's only one shirtless scene, but the man looks impossible... amazing, but clearly impossible for mere mortals to achieve.

Joining him once again is Tom Hiddleston as the trickster Loki... and this is possibly Hiddleston's best turn as Loki. Again, I think it's because the humour is dialled way up, and the best Loki moments are actually those fun, playing, teasing moments.

Also visiting from the wider Marvel universe is Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk... and honestly, mostly Hulk and not Banner. It's fun actually getting to know the big green guy this time around, yes, he's a giant toddler having a temper tantrum, but he's fun (again, I just keep coming back to that word). And the CGI on Hulk are just amazing. Yes, you've kind of, sort of been able to see Ruffalo in there in the two Avenger movies, but this time, he's so clearly 100% there under the green, it's kind of spectacular.

There's no Natalie Portman and Co this time around... apparently she dumped Thor (I'd say spoilers, but they throw it out within about the first 20 minutes), and I'm actually okay with all of that. Like I mentioned before, this movie is about shedding the old and reinventing what comes next.

Taking the villain's chair this time around is Cate Blanchett as Hela (in this incarnation of the mythology, spoilers, Odin's first born... but still the goddess of death)... and Blanchett is just having THE BEST TIME with this. I will reiterate my usual complaint that the Marvel villains often feel somewhat toothless, and Hela suffers from that as well (although given the body count in this movie, she shouldn't... but still manages to), but I don't quite know how you balance an unsettling or creepy villain with the light tone of these movies.

My favourite moment is when Hela is talking to her lackey, Scourge (played incredibly well by Karl Urban) in the throne room of Asgard... everything about her body language and tone and their back and forth dialogue is what makes this an engaging movie. The interaction itself isn't something we've never seen before, but the way the two of them do it makes it worth watching.

Returning from the previous Thor movies is Idris Elba as Heimdall, who, out of everyone is the only one really making the movie that was presented on the page. Which isn't to say he's bad, because he's not... but he's making a much more serious movie, which completely works for the character and his scenes, and never threw me out of the moment while watching, but he's the stakes. He represents what really going on and what Thor ultimately needs to get back to and focus on.

The other new face is Tessa Thompson who seems to have made a career out of playing strong willed, but sometimes not totally likeable, women (I'm looking at you both Veronica Mars and Westworld as the two characters I'm most familiar with). And she does that here as Valkyrie to some degree, but I quite like her character here. And she's no so much unlikable as she is complicated, which is fun to unpack.

Also deserving of a mention is Rachel House who did the voice of the grandmother in Moana as the second in command to Jeff Goldblum's character (yes, Goldblum is also in this, having the time of his life, just doing whatever the hell he wants really)... but back to House... her character, Topaz, is just so dry and funny and bitchy... not to mention looking like she's ready to kick all the butt and take all the names. I loved every scene she was in, I'm not going to lie.

As I think I've mentioned multiple times now, this movie is bright and colourful... I think this even our sparkles either of the Guardians movies to be honest, and it was nice to see an alien/future city where the buildings aren't either a) all the same colour or b) all grey/white/silver/gold/blue.

And for the most part, the effects are amazing. Possibly the only bit that didn't quite look "right" was the giant wolf, Fenrir... I mean it looked pretty damn good... it just didn't look 100% believable... and this is in a movie with a guy made out of rocks, and spaceships. It's a minor nitpick to be honest, but it's still there.

The music is also amazing... with the most brilliant uses of Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song (you know, the AH-AH-AHHHHHHHH-AH.... AH-AH-AHHHHHHHH-AH song), and something called In the Face of Evil by Magic Sword... which made me think very strongly of the Stranger Things title song during the movie, there's a synth thing going on certainly which carries over to the score itself (so maybe it was part of that instead).

At the moment I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is my favourite Marvel movie to date.

And as a final note, and a slightly spoilery one at that... pay particular attention during the "play" being performed when Thor returns to Asgard for the first time... the actors playing Loki, Odin and Thor are Matt Damon, Sam Neill and Luke Hemsworth respectively.

yani's rating: 5 undead warriors out of 5

photo saturday: bobbing along

This week was definitely full of things that happened... whether those things were actually interesting or not is a matter of opinion.

These things included but were not limited to there being a hailstorm come through at about 4:30 in the morning and wake me up due to how loud it was. Yes, a hailstorm, in October... with accompanying wintery weather, as much as I don't like the summer heat, this was a bit much, even for me.

Also, Halloween, which I treated in the usual fashion and ignored entirely. I didn't even bother watching Hocus Pocus which I've done the past couple of years, to be honest I totally forgot about it.

And I DM'd my first DnD game.

Yeah, that last one was totally unplanned... but it turned out that we didn't have anyone willing to DM on our table on Thursday, and I did have a module with me that I'd read through at least twice (several weeks ago). So I DM'd.

It wasn't half bad... although I'll have to ask the players next week if they thought the combat was too easy... it just seemed to all go very quick and I didn't really get to do a ton of stuff with the bad guys. Plus I only managed to knock one character unconscious. I could definitely do better though, I kind of fluffed through what should have been some roleplay stuff and jumped straight into the combat, which does kind of happen, but I feel like it should have gone a slightly different way.

Also, I definitely need to print the next adventure in a different way so that I don't loose all of the monster stats (which I did, more than once).

But it was my first time.

It was also good that I got to do it with people I feel comfortable with and know how to push some of their buttons occasionally. And it just felt a lot more chill, so that was good.

Do I want to do it regularly... no, probably not. But I will definitely do it again... eventually.

I also printed Ma's calendar.

As I think I mentioned last week, it's not especially innovative but it did come out fairly well, even though I totally forgot how the hell to make my printer print full page until after I'd printed the cover. It doesn't look too bad though, so all I have to do now is get it bound... which I may to on Wednesday after DnD, just because it will save me a trip.

It's definitely not my best effort, but it's not bad.

Today we really knuckled down to knock off some more Christmas shopping. And yes, I know it's barely November but the shops (and the city) are already putting up their Christmas decorations, and Christmas products have been available in the shops since the end of September. Thankfully there isn't really a lot we need to get, so we made some definite in-roads.

Rolling backwards a little, we did the supermarket thing this morning... where both of us proclaimed that we "didn't need a lot"... and then proceeded to buy what certainly seemed like a lot of stuff, although I think it was really only the usual amount to be honest.

We decided to head down to Marion (theoretically for the last time before Christmas, because it gets more than a bit nuts), do a little shopping and then take in a movie.

Which we did... and we also managed to knock all but a couple of ill-defined things off Ma's list too. So a successful trip all up.

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unseen theatre company: the truth

It's been a year since we last returned to the Discworld with the Unseen Theatre Company, and this time it's back to Ankh-Morpork and the creature of the Disc's first newspaper with The Truth.

Hugh O'Connor, usually hidden behind the grinning skull of the anthropomorphic personification of Death in Unseen productions, steps up as William de Worde, the unlikely and, as is often the case in Pratchett's work, somewhat unwilling hero of the piece. I especially enjoyed his (some would say childish, I would say very funny) choices towards the end of the play, when he's coming up against the unstoppable force that is Sam Vines (played once again by Mike Shaw).

I did notice that they condensed a lot of the first part of the book down to essentially "man runs into dwarf in the middle of the street, accidentally creates first newspaper"... which is essentially accurate, but definitely one of those moments when a knowledge of the source material comes in handy. But while many of the details are condensed, the rest of the play remains fairly faithful to the original.

Stealing every scene they were in... in order of stealingness... were Danny Sag (last seen as the Patrician in Feet of Clay) was absolutely hilarious as Otto Chriek, the tea-totalling vampire photographer (sorry, iconographer) who joins the newspaper. Everything Sag does as Otto is fantastic and he's clearly very comfortable both with the accent and just with being present on stage as well.

Next up would be Aimee Ford as Gaspode, the "clearly that dog didn't just speak because dogs definitely can't talk" talking dog. Ford has been great in all her Unseen roles and she briefly reprices Corporal Nobby Nobbs, but her timing and attitude are perfect for Gaspode. Bonus shout-out to David Dyte as Foul Ole Ron for his accompanying cried of "Millennium Hand and Shrimp" and "Bugrit".

Last but by no means least are Nick Andrews and Paul Messenger as Mr Pin and Mr Tulip respectively. The characters have more than a little Pulp Fiction/Reservoir Dogs DNA in them, and Andrews and Messenger play this up beautifully.

Natalie Haigh, Leighton James and Alycia Rabig (in dual roles taking over as Corporal Angua of the Watch, and Boddony the very blonde dwarf) fill out the staff of the newspaper, and do a great job.

The set is the more "complex" version from the last show with the two raised platforms and the doors and works fairly well here (although the doors really don't get a lot of use), I will say that there's perhaps a little too much removing and replacing of the main table and printing press towards the end of the show when things need to take place in other locations which slows things down a little.

Also, given that this was opening night, there were only a few stumbles with lines and the like which is totally understandable.

It's perhaps not the most... exciting or visual of all of Pratchett's work, but they've managed to make it into a decent night of theatre.

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photo sunday: grave words

My week has been a little all over the place... quite like the weather to be honest, which can't make it's mind up between heat, sunshine, clouds, rain and wind.

Returning to the idea of actually cooking food during the week was a little strange, but pretty successful, I mean nothing was overly complicated but everything was successful.

Fun times ensued on Sunday though when my ear decided to do it's semi biannual blocking thing, so for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I was basically deaf in one ear. I was also luckily enough to be able to sneak an appointment in at the ENT doctor on Thursday... but then on Wednesday it kind of unblocked itself in the middle of my game of DnD (which was weird).

But I still went along and was in and out within fifteen minutes, so at least I know my ears are not going to be a problem for a while again. Gross, but positive.

I also finally got around to doing my tax return this week... normally I try and knock it off around August, but for whatever reason I just never got around to it until the week before close off this time. And again, it took like five minutes to do, but at the same time for some reason one of my things had automatically been put in the wrong section, which freaked me out a little... but once I worked out what the issue was it was a simple fix. And I'm getting a good whack of money back... which is great, but that money then has to stretch until actual work happens again.

And, weirdly, without actually notifying anyone, the Powers That Be sent someone to come and paint the outside of all the window frames... I think this has been underway for a while. Well, the scaffolding has been up at the back for a few weeks now anyway, but it was only this week that anything actually really seemed to start happening. Again, good, but I ended up having to clean all the kitchen benches again because the dust and whatnot went everywhere when he removed the old paint. I'm assuming they're going to do the front of the block as well (it would be super weird if they were only doing the back part that nobody really sees), but I never thought to ask the painter.

I also went through the first process of Ma's 2018 calendar... interestingly because we really haven't gone anywhere or done anything for any number of reasons in the recent past, I used the shots from the Wonderwalls street art in Port Adelaide. I still need to give it a final once over to make sure it's all 100% correct, and go and get some more printer paper from Officeworks (I was thinking about doing that today, but I could always do it on Monday afternoon too). And then it's printing time.

Saturday was a big day... well, maybe not big exactly, but long.

We started with the usual supermarket shenanigans, which were both usual and average.

Then we headed off to IKEA since Ma hasn't been in almost a year, and I haven't been since the rental inspection before this most recent one. And they had their Christmas stuff out.

Now, we really don't need more wrapping paper... but they had really cute wrapping paper... we bought a bunch of wrapping paper. And a bunch of other things, some of which are useful and helpful, some of which can only be explained by the mind control gas they pump through the ventilation. We also recycled over a year's worth of batteries, which was definitely a thing.

After that we swung around to Arndale to try and make some kind of start on Christmas shopping... and didn't really get anywhere great, but we did stop and have a Boost Juice and sit down and talk about who and what and where regarding presents for people. We possibly would have given up there had it been a normal day, but we had more time to fill, so we ended up heading into the city, to actually start buying presents. And by presents I mean little bits and pieces that will add up to a present's worth eventually.

But it's still a start.

By that point, having walked all the way around IKEA, all the way around Arndale and from one end of the Mall to the other, we were pretty exhausted, so we headed back to my place. We also had a play to go and see, so we killed some time here, then went and had dinner at the Seven Stars in the city, just down the street from The Bakehouse.

And, very, very weirdly, we sat next to a woman who turned out to be someone I worked in the same office with (but not actually with, if memory serves), about... 15 years ago. And she remembered me. As soon as I actually paid attention to her I recognised the face and voice, but honestly I couldn't tell you a single thing beyond that. She seemed to remember me fairly well though and said nice things... or she didn't remember me at all and was just saying generic nice things. Either is equally possible and likely.

By the time I got home I couldn't even be bothered doing anything, so crashed out and went to bed (well, played around on my phone until Ma messaged me to say she was home safe... then I crashed).

Current Mood:

photo saturday: sydney mornings

This week was primarily concerned with cleaning and my rental inspection.

Thankfully I was able to split the cleaning across three days, doubly helpful because I started feeling a little flu-y and gross on Sunday night. Thankfully a dose of cold and flu tablets had me back to mostly feeling like a human being again by about Wednesday.

Like I said, I split the cleaning across three days... general tidying on Sunday, kitchen/stove and Monday and floors/bathroom on Tuesday... mostly because I was out of the house during the day on Wednesday, but it worked out pretty well.

Even thought the weather wasn't especially helpful, being way too warm for this early in October. But it did mean that the floors dried pretty damn quickly on Tuesday, so that was a plus.

Unfortunately the heat also meant that even though I'd made quiche to last me all week, I really just wasn't in the mood on Tuesday or Wednesday. I also made the largest quiche I've ever made, using the roasting pan I bought for last Christmas and a full half dozen eggs.

This week I've decided to go back to people food... or at least try actually cooking during the week, which will be something of a novelty.

Going back to earlier this week, when Thursday rolled around I moved my chiro appointment from Friday afternoon to Thursday morning so that I could be out of the house during the inspection, then headed down to Marion and ended up going to the movies. It was a good way to kill the time, which I'm sure I could have done just by wandering aimlessly, but at least this way I actually had something keeping my attention.

I've said it a number of times before, but the best thing about having to do a totally bonkers cleaning job for a rental inspection is that once the inspection is done, you come home to a totally clean and tidy house and you don't have to worry about it even a little. So nice.

Today wasn't really much of anything... we did the supermarket thing, came back, I tidied up my fridge (because that's the one bit I didn't need to do for the inspection), put everything away and then we headed into town. With no real destination in mind to be honest. And really we just wandered up and down the Mall a bit and then pretty much called it a day.

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movies: kingsman - the golden cirlce

I'm not completely sure how I feel about Kingsman: The Golden Circle. It's the sequel to 2015's Kingman: The Secret Service, which I loved.

And it's a good sequel, it hits a lot of the right beats, but it just doesn't seem as... cohesive somehow.

Also, it needs about 150% more Channing Tatum, even if we do get to see him in some very well stuffed underwear, he's essentially hardly in the movie at all. I was very much looking forward to seeing him and Taron Egerton suited up and taking on the bad guys.

One of the things I do love is that they brought characters you wouldn't necessarily expect back for this movie. Specifically Hanna Alström as the Danish princess, now Eggsy's girlfriend (which is a great way to twist the trope that she was just the "do it in the asshole" girl from the last movie). But also Edward Holcroft who played one of the failed Kingman recruits in the last movie, and who is actually really great as the villain's prime henchman in this one. If anything, he also suffers from the "not enough screentime" problem as Tatum.

I will say... and mild spoilers incoming... that bringing back Sophie Cookson for two scenes before getting rid of her for the remainder of the movie was a complete waste. I mean maybe she wasn't available for the whole movie, but it was disappointing the she wasn't better utilised.

And also in the mild spoiler territory, while Pedro Pascal does fine as the American agent they do team Eggsy up with, the movie couldn't signpost his eventual reveal (well, in broad strokes anyway, not in the specific details) any more than it did... if for no other reason that he's not in any of the posters.

To be perfectly honest though... while it was sweet that they brought Colin Firth back (again, not really hiding the fact, since he's on the posters and did press for the movie), but I kind of wish they hadn't. His return kind of crashes into the middle of the movie and grinds it to a halt for a bit, and there really isn't anything that he does that... just to pluck an idea out of absolutely nowhere... Tatum couldn't have done instead and equally well. Don't get me wrong, Firth is good, especially when he's playing the... again, spoilers... amnesiac version of Harry, there's a completely different expression in his eyes, he's clearly a totally different person... I just wonder if we needed any version of Harry.

Rounding out the cast are Halle Berry and Julianne Moore... Berry is great, but just seems to be completely underused (although in the cast of both her a Tatum, if the rumours of a third Kingsman movie and a possible Statesman spin off movie are true, they would both have much larger roles to play in both of those, I'm sure. But Moore is chewing the scenery in much the same way that Sam Jackson did in the first movie... but in a much weirder Stepford sociopath kind of way.

I will say that the technology feels a little more fantastical this time around... the first one it was more of a stretch that the tech could do what it was doing... this time around they've kind of gone over that hill and just kept on going. Which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with that, it just requires a little more suspension of disbelief.

Speaking of which, while the payoff(s) (there is technically more than one payoff) for the joke is okay, I probably could have done without all the Elton John sequences. Yes, they dragged poor Elton into this. And all of those scenes with him just feel weird. I don't know if it's because he feels like a little bit of a caricature of himself now anyway, or what, but I could have survived without him.

Again the costume design and production design in the movie are good, but not quite as strong as the first one (almost... but it's not quite as lush thing time around).

Like I said at the start, while it still feels like it's taking the spy movie genre and ramping everything up as far as they'll go, it doesn't feel quite polished this time around. It's still fun, with some genuine laughs, it's just not as good.

And as an aside, I'm also wondering if this is going to be the start of a trend of "villainous American presidents" on screen.

yani's rating: 3 whiskey bottles out of 5