The weekend before last I stumbled upon this charming little Barbara Streisand comedy that I had never heard of before called 'On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.' It was playing on the ABC at midday and we missed the very beginning of it, but once we found it T & I quickly got hooked. It's a strange little film about a woman called Daisy Gamble who starts seeing a psychiatrist in an attempt to quit smoking. While she is under hypnosis to try and stop her smoking Daisy starts re-living moments of what seem to be her past lives.
I loved the weird plot line, which was not what I had expected and Barbra is charming as Daisy. The characters also break into song at the most absurd moments I which found quite funny, but I'm not sure if that was meant to be part of the comedy or not. The one thing I really loved about this movie though was the costumes. Daisy seems to wear a different coloured baby-doll dress paired with her gorgeous bouffant hairstyle and a matching hat in almost every scene. The film also features some Georgian and Victorian style costumes, when Daisy re-lives her past lives, but it was the 1960s costumes that I loved best.
The film also stars a very young Jack Nicholson (we barely recognized him at first!) looking very groovy as Tad Pringle...
Young, handsome Jack Nicolson.
The amazing orange dress.
This dress was my favourite, although you can't see it very well here it was covered in beautiful little applique flowers.
Daisy can make flowers grow abnormally fast by talking to them.
She also has this amazing bedroom with floral wallpaper that looks lie a Van Gough painting and a nightie that matches her sheets!
Yesterday I finally took the plunge and saw Blackfish. I've been wanting to see it for a while, but it has only just come out in cinemas here, and I had been feeling a little trepiditious about watching it because I knew it would be sad. And it was. I got very emotional at the end thinking about all the whales that are still imprisoned there. Like Tilly, floating alone and depressed in his isolation pool.
But I'm also glad because I feel this film has the potential to change things - I think it already is! - and it's getting a lot of publicity. Joan Jett recently filed a cease and desist order against SeaWorld when she discovered they were playing her song during there shows - go Joan! I just really hope this film will bring an end to SeaWorld, I really do. When I watch the footage of those shows it makes me sick to my stomach. Having read Death At Seaworld recently I already knew everything that was covered in the film - in fact the book covers it all in much greater detail. Keeping whales in captivity is so wrong on so many levels and they are such amazing, smart, beautiful animals. If you haven't seen this movie you totally should, it is devastatingly eye opening.
Then today, I traveled down to Williamstown to meet one of the Sea Shepherd crew - and I got to go onto the Steve Irwin ship - I had never been on any of their ships before, so I was super excited to be able to. It was amazing. Everyone there was getting ready and making preparations for when they set sail next week to do the amazing work they do protecting whales.
I took some photos of the ships and also some of the stunning view of the city across the bay - but they were on film so I will have to wait to get them developed.
I naively thought that nowadays there would be strict regulations in place to protect the well being of animals used in movies and that filmmakers would be forbidden from deliberately killing or harming animals for live action shots - but instead we have another corrupt system to add to our long list. Since reading Thanking the Monkey years ago I have opposed the use of wild animals for entertainment and films because wild animals have to be 'trained' to perform and do as they are told and this usually involves negative reinforcement such as hitting, prodding and beating.
And of course wild animals are just that, wild animals and cannot really ever be controlled. If they want to lash out at someone, they will.
The stupidity of the human race and the media never fails to amaze me. I think the outcome speaks for itself here. But I will say this - training tigers to interact with people and to perform tricks is not conservation.
While I am a little skeptical about this one particularly since it also talks about Bill Clinton as being vegan when apparently he is not really vegan - though I believe he may have been vegan initially while he was trying to improve his health and now consumes much less meat and animal products than he used too. The article also says Gore reportedly switched to veganism for health reasons. While it would be great if this were true, even going mostly vegan or cutting down your meat/dairy intake is a good start so good on him. I do hope that environmentalists will take note of this too because there are a lot of environmental benefits to eating a plant based diet - mainly because livestock produce so much methane, factory farms and fish farms produce toxic run off and meat production uses huge amounts of water.
Ever since I watched Midway I have been deeply concerned about the amount of plastic waste ending up in our oceans. We really need to do something now. We need to stop over consuming and start cleaning up after ourselves - stop dropping cigarette butts all over the ground and being litter bugs - because sea animals and birds pay the price for our pollution - and we will to eventually if our ocean ecosystems die.
7. And lastly, we don't celebrate Thanksgiving here in Australia but I do like these photos of lucky turkeys taken by Jo-Anne McArthur, who have been spared the dinner table and now live out their lives at Farm Sanctuary.
I've developed quite a strong obsession with horror movies lately and have been watching a lot as you can see. Here's some brief reviews of what I've been watching lately -
Upstream Color (2013) ★★★★
I saw this at MIFF in August but I had been wanting to see it for a while before that ever since I saw the trailer last year. It's a pretty amazing film visually and sensually - loved the soundtrack. It is also a challenging, unconventional film but I found it completely engrossing.
Evil Dead (1981) ★★★
I watched this on my own late one night because I was bored. It was pretty entertaining. I found it funny, corny, gross, offensive, and at times scary. It's basically a gory/hilarious romp.
Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home (2009) ★★★★ 1/2
I found this movie really emotional. I cried a lot throughout. I'd been meaning to watch it for quite a while but had never gotten around to it - and to be honest wasn't sure what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised. I like this movie because it is really powerful emotionally, but doesn't show a lot of graphic footage in comparison to other animal rights films I've watched, it's more about the stories of the people and their experiences. I would highly recommend it. It is sad but it also has some really beautiful happy moments in it too.
Hellraiser (1987) ★★★
I actually found this movie hilarious and would say it's one of the funnier horror movies I've watched. Features great 80s special effects. There's something delightful and nostalgic about 80s horror that I do love.
Carrie (1976) ★★★★ 1/2
Loved this movie. Cannot believe I waited this long to watch it. Underdog takes revenge is such a perfect premise for this movie.
The Exorcist (1973) ★★★
Liked it but I did not really find it scary.
Don't be Afraid of the Dark (2011) ★★★
I wasn't a huge fan of the story or the characters - but - for some reason this movie really freaked me out. I think it just really brings back childhood memories of being afraid of monsters in the dark and jumping onto my bed so that they couldn't grab my feet!
Maximum Tolerated Dose (2012) ★★★★ 1/2
I watched this for the first time in February at the Australian premier but recently re-watched it. The film basically talks to a whole bunch of people who have been involved in the animal testing industry at some stage and invariably been trumatised/changed by it. It also tells the story of some individual animals who have been tested on. I know some animal activists seem to take issue with he fact that the film only looks at the issue from a animal welfare/cruelty perspective and fails to go into the science of it ie. the scientific fallacies of animal testing and how it can be harmful to humans because animals genetic make up is so different to humans. While I think it is a valid point, I don't share that view. I liked the film as it is and feel it is very powerful and moving.
V/H/S (2012) ★★★★
I found V/H/S really scary. It's a compilation of short horror vignettes held together by an overarching story of a bunch of teens breaking into a house where they find a whole bunch of videos containing the footage that makes up the film.
The Inkeepers (2011) ★★★ 1/2
After watching 'House of the Devil' a while ago I have since been keen to watch other movies by director Ti West. Inkeepers revolves around two employees working their final shift in a creepy old hotel before all hell breaks loose.
Session 9 (2001) ★★★★
Asbestos removers cleaning an abandoned insane asylum. The best thing about this movie is it is original and avoids the typical horror cliches. It also has a completely unexpected ending. It's the first horror movie to really pull the cat out of the bag on me.
Evil Dead 2 (1987) ★★
This was really just a shitty re-continuation of the first movie. It starts off very confusing because it kicks off with a re-cap of the events of the first movie - but it also changes things a little for which I believe the technical term is retcon. The rest of it is pretty similar to the first except with a few new
characters.
Django (1966) ★★
I watched this by accident. I saw it on my friend's hard drive and thought it was Django Unchained. Started watching it and confusion ensued - and then hilarity. It's an Italian western dubbed over in English. It's a funny, reasonably entertaining B grade watch.
Devil (2010) ★★ 1/2
A group of people get stuck in an elevator and one of them is the Devil.
The End of the Line (2007) ★★★★
A train trapped in subway tunnel late at night + a mysterious cult. I enjoyed this movie a lot. I found it suspenseful, but also quite kooky in it's concept. Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010) ★★★★
I watched this one last night and wow, it is like nothing I have ever seen before. It kind of blurs the lines between horror and sci fi and is hard to pin down but I definitely found this movie quite scary. It is not bloody or gory but it is really suspenseful and unsettling. I read one negative review that describes it as a "bad acid trip" which is probably quite accurate but it's a very very well crafted acid trip. It has little dialog. The music and visuals were sensational, the acting was amazing I thought, and the story was also intriguing. What really impressed me about this film was the level of craftsmanship that seemed to go into creating it. Everything about it just seemed immaculate. The music worked really well with the visuals while the sets were out of this world and at one point there is a book which holds some clues about the story line and it is full of these amazing trippy illustrations. It is slow, but I think it shows that a film can still be scary and slow - as we are so used to fast paced action nowadays. It also has - being set in the 1980s - cool retro styling and has been compared to 2001 Space Odyssey as you can see from the trailer. The one issue I had with the the film was the ending, which was not what I had expected and seemed to happen very quickly.
On my to watch list:
- Francis Ha
- Halloween
- Metrolpolis
- The Prince and the Showgirl
- Stories We Tell
- The Ghosts In Our Machine
- Suspira
and many more...
