Howzat! There are more paper giants.

Did anyone watch (and love) the ABC's Paper Giants: the Birth of Cleo?
 

Asher Keddie as Ita Buttrose

I watched this series whilst on a plane to Germany last year. When flying, my absolute favourite thing is getting to watch all these movies and not having to feel like you have to be outside because you can't go outside on a plane. I normally have to calculate how much time I have and see how many movies I will be able to fit in. Then I have to decide what I feel like watching and which movies are the most important to watch. So my time is precious in a plane. At first I was a little skeptical about this show and I wondered if this gamble with my time would pay off but after the first few minutes I was sold. Ita Buttrose is a great lady and this is a great portrayal of part of her life and her struggle to get Cleo up and running. It's also a great feminist tale. Asher Keddie as Ita does a brilliant job and even captures her famous lisp.

And now we have some sequels being made. Not only is there another ABC series but there is also a Channel Nine series as well. The Channel Nine porduction, Howzat! Kerry Packer's War, that will focus on the events surrounding the creation of World Series Cricket whereas the ABC production, Paper Giants: Magazine Wars, will portray the circulation war of New Idea and Woman's Day in the 1980s and 1990s.

New Idea Vs Women's Day

 Both series' are littered with Australian stars with the Kerry Packer show starring most of the cast from Channel Ten's Offspring (not that this is a bad thing, just we really like to recycle our actors), Lachy Hulme, Matthew Le Nevez and Richard Davies whilst ABC is pulling stars like Rachel Griffiths and sees Rob Calton reprising his role as Packer. Both shows come from the production company Southern Star and are being produced by John Edwards (Offspring, Love My Way).

Rob Calton Vs Lachy Hulme

Well it seems that there is a boy's show and a girl's show. Magazines vs cricket. Not that men can only watch one and women the other, just that they are obviously targeted at different audiences but then they are both important Australian stories. But what we really need to take out of this is that if you are considering watching one of these shows and you haven't seen Paper giants: The Birth of Cleo then that is the one you need to watch. That is said with quite a bit of bias on my part as I haven't seen the other shows, I am a girl and I think Asher Keddie is brilliant but even so, it is a good show and a great production (and it's the 70s so there are some pretty awesome outfits).

...And just if anyone was interested, I know that Ita's ex-husband, Alasdair Macdonald, is/was (don't really know what happened with the case) suing the ABC for defamation. He said that the portrayal of him was wrong as he did not abandon his family and did not leave Ita because he felt threatened by her success. The ABC did issue a full apology recognising and admitting that they were wrong. This is good to know. Him abandoning Ita whilst she was pregnant did make for a great story but it also really made me hate the guy, so it's nice to know that he wasn't that much of an asshole...

An unexpected trilogy

And two movies become three. 

Peter jackson to split The Hobbit into three movies 

Now, I don't necessarily think that this is a bad thing. I really want The Hobbit to be told amazingly and to be told well. I was happy that they were making it into two films but I don't know if I want to wait three years to see the resolve of this movie, that's betting on the fact that they will release one each year as is normally the case. I think stretching this into three movies will be great for the story as everything and, according to one interview, even things that Tolkien added in appendices will be told, but at least The Lord of the Rings had three books, The Hobbit on the other hand is only one. But regardless of this decision, the movies will be incredible.

Premier Newman

Some maybe-not-so-well-known news for today

Whilst on the train, enjoying my mX newspaper I read,an small article about the death of a Nigerian man who had six wives. Whilst he was having sex with his sixth wife the five other sex-starved wives came into the room with a variety of weapons and set upon him, demanding that he have sex with them too. After having sex with the fourth consecutive wife, he stopped breathing and died as the fifth wife made her way to his bed. Wow. Death by over sex. Who would have known?

In the same newspaper (which isn't very big mind you), there was an article about a Chinese man who told police that thieves had broken into his house and stolen none other than his penis. The thieves broke into his room whilst he was asleep, put a bag over his head and chopped off his penis. Apparently he had been having affairs with a few different women from his town and at least one of them wasn't very happy about him sleeping with other women. Must not have properly defined the relationship. He thought it was open and she thought he would do better without his genitals...

And in the same newspaper, a team of 18 police officers in Shandong took 40 minutes to rescue a drowning woman from a river only to find that the woman was in fact a sex doll. By the time they completed their heroic work they had a crowd of over 1000 people.

These stories are the reason that I love mX so much. May it forever stay in print!

Coming Sooner, is Superman really only worth $7 to you?

Coming Sooner seem to disagree with me about my excitement for the new Superman movie, Man of Steel.

We will see, we will see.

Man of Steel

During my second viewing of the new Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, they played the new Superman trailer!! It is just so exciting. It looks quite dark (quite like the new Batman films actually) and you can really see they are taking a completely new angle with this film. They have changed the symbol and they are obviously trying to steer as far as they can away from Superman Returns. People like to disown that movie, pretend it doesn't exist. Fair enough, it wasn't all that great but it was still Superman.

It was such a surprise to see it, especially as I had tried to find this trailer just a few weeks earlier but to no avail. I found many fan-made trailers where people had ripped random shots from other movies to make their own Man of Steel trailer. They fooled me everytime. Good one youtube, anyone can add an 'official' to the title of their video.

Also, not only is Superman taking on a more serious look film wise and with the revamped symbol, but it seems that he is no longer going to wear his red underwear on the outside of his costume. Interesting. I haven't actually seen a proper picture of the new outfit but I don't know how I feel about Superman not having his undies. It doesn't seem right. But then wearing your underwear on the outside of your clothes shouldn't seem right anyway, should it? But then again, he does look good..

Anyway, the point is that it looks promising. There has been two teaser trailers released. Both are more or less identical except for the voice overs by the two fathers of Superman. Russell Crowe as Jor-El imparts some words of wisdom;

"You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They'll rise behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. In time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." 

 And Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent follows suit in the other trailer;

"You're not just anyone. One day, you're going to have to make a choice. You'll have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be. Whoever that man is, good character or bad, is going to change the world."

The voice overs are accompanied by some very good looking cinematography of (a very pretty) Henry Cavill working as a fisherman and of Clark when he is a kid, running around with a red cape on. Some very Lord of the Rings-y sounding music also plays. Then right at the end, Superman is flying up through the clouds, creating his own jet stream. It's brilliant!

So here it is, the Kevin Costner trailer;

And the Russell Crowe trailer;

I cannot wait.

(What I forgot to mention was that they have cast Amy Adams as Lois Lane. Now don't get me wrong, I like Amy Adams as an actor but do I like her as Lois Lane? I can tell you that they definitely miscast Kate Bosworth as Lois in Superman Returns so can Adams do this character justice?)

A ridiciulous, senseless act of violence

This is why people should not be allowed to carry guns.

Shootings at Batman Premiere

If their purpose is for protection then my question is; what was so life threatening about a cinema full of innocent civilians who wanted to watch the newest Batman film that this man had to shoot everyone?

How many more of these type of shootings have to happen before the US will realise that they must get rid of their "right" to bear arms. It's outdated. The law needs to be changed. The world and the people living in it don't run like they used to a few hundred years ago. How many more innocent people have to die because people like this are able to buy weapons so easily?

I can't understand why someone would do a thing like this.

Christopher Nolan has said that he was devastated by the attack; "I believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful pastime. The movie theater is my home, and the idea that someone would violate that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me."

And this is how I feel. The cinema isn't quite my home but I do love going. Movies give you an opportunity to get lost in a different world. For 2-3 hours you get to sit in a dark room with strangers and forget about the rest of the world and completely lose yourself in the pictures playing on the screen. It's almost a sacred place and the fact that someone decided to destory that peace is harrowing.


The poor victims won't ever be able to go to the cinema or watch anything with Batman in it again without being haunted by what happened that night. The release of Batman should have been a celebration and a time of rejoice and excitement not a time of vigils and heartbreak. 


My heart goes out to those in the city Aurora. I wish that they did not have to feel so much pain over this senseless act of violence.

A hobbit's journey

The Hobbit has officially finished filming (yesterday) after it's 266 day shoot.

 

I cannot wait!

The Amazing Spiderman

The new reboot of the Spider-man franchise The Amazing Spider-man is great but does tend to feel a little like you have seen it all before. It's the origin story of Spiderman from when Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is abandoned by his (previously unseen) parents and leave him in the care of his Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). As a shy introverted teenager trying to make it through high school where he is bullied and has a crush on Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), things change when he discovers secret files left by his father. This leads him to Dr Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) who used to work with his father and is currently working at Oscorp. Parker sneaks into the lab where the company is creating biocable from genetically modified spiders and he is bitten by one such spider to discover that he now has spider-like abilities. The one armed Dr Connors conducts experiments to regenerate limbs using lizard DNA. He is being pressured to devise a cure for the dying, unseen head of OsCorp, Norman Osbourne.


For me the deja vu wasn't a giant obstacle to the enjoyment of the film. I loved it. I think that visually it was great and the leads really played their parts well and I felt like I could really relate to them although I have never been bitten by a radioactive spider before. I think that everything about the film is great, I just wish that this was the first of the spider-man films and not just a remake. I do believe that this film builds on everything that the first films did, to the point where I must say that I like this new one better than the first spidey films. I am not bad mouthing those films though. They were good, but before this film, when I thought about spider-man, it was always followed with a big "Meh" I didn't really care all that much. Nor am I saying that Toby Maguire was bad as Spider-man because he wasn't, he was good and I know that a lot of people really loved him in that role but something about this new Spider-man film really connected with me.


Yes there are things that they could have done a lot better, for instance, given Emma Stone a bigger part. She is an awesome actress and isn't given all that much to work with in this film. Mostly I wish they had really steered away from the old films, even more than they have tried to. I suppose it would be hard to not tred on familiar territory when making a new Spider-man film because both are about Spider-man but they could have tried a little harder to find a new angle. Even the new villain, Dr Curt Connors is far too similar to Norman Osbourne and the Green Goblin, although in the film it does say that Dr Connors is working for Norman Osbourne to creat a cure for dying and in the comics, they are different it just seems for those that are not diehard fans (or those who do not bother to go surfing the net to find out like I did) it may just seem that these two characters are the same.

But the leads are great. Garfield brings a new depth and greater emotion to the role. You can really feel and see his pain. I don't know the character of Gwen Stacy but in my opinion Emma Stone was great. The character of Gwen Stacy in Spider-man 3 is pretty weak and a bit of a nothing. I don't know how she is written in the comics but she is better in the new one. And the relationship between the two leads is believable and they have good on-screen chemistry. Andrew Garfield is 28 and Emma Stone is 24, so for having to act 17/18 year olds they do a pretty good job. Although, again, I was never a spider teenager nor was a super smart to be a top intern at Oscorp. But if I was a teenager with either of those things, I would like to believe that I would be like either of these two.

What was really great about this film was the look of it. The visuals were awesome and I think I might have to go back and watch it in 3D to really get to appreciate them. The camera angles and the point of view shots really worked. Marc Webb, the director, (500 Days of Summer) really did a good job and apparently this will be a trilogy, so definitely looking forward to more of both Garfield and Webb (it's too bad that Stone's character has an ill fate ahead of her).

Marc Fennell seemed to have something against the soundtrack. I do not agree. I thought that the soundtrack was good and was quite happy to see that it was composed by James Horner (behind such soundtracks as Avatar, A Beautiful Mind). Fennell said it was intrusive and did not capture the moment. I think (and now sitting here watching Spider-man 3 whilst typing) the new soundtrack is less intrusive than the old films. I thought it had a nice theme and to be honest, I barely noticed the soundtrack until the end. That, to me, means that it was neither a great soundtrack nor a crap one but somewhere in the middle. Maybe I was too engrossed in the film to even notice. Maybe I will have to go see it again...

I have heard in an interview with Andrew Garfield that Tobey Maguire actually sent him a note wishing him luck and giving him support in the role of Spider-man. Now isn't that cute, what a nice guy. And in a particularly funny scene in the school library we have the guest appearance of the co-creator of Spider-man, Stan Lee as the librarian. It's a great scene and a good tribute to the man behind the whole thing. (I have just been informed that I am living under a rock because Stan Lee apparently pops up in all the Marvel comic movies. He is in the old Spider-mans..he just appeared on the TV then....and he is also in The Avengers. Well it's still a good scene regardless of the fact that Stan Lee happens to be a comic-movie slut).

Well regardless of what you think of the old films or how wary you may think you are about the new one, it's definitely worth going to see. I like this new one much better and (my apologies to Tobey Maguire) the new Garfield Spider-man, I just wish it had been made before the others so that there would be nothing to compare it to.