Burton at ACMI

Went along to ACMI at Federation Square today to see the new Tim Burton exhibition.

It never crossed my mind that there'd be a queue, so I took my time and arrived at around 1pm, only to find a queue wrapping around itself several times from the ticket office and out into Fed Square. I don't like queues at the best of times, but when a queue leaves you standing outdoors in 11 degree temperatures, not much would tempt me to join it. So I didn't.

I left Fed Square, and went shopping down at South Wharf for a couple of hours, then returned to ACMI around 3:30pm, to find the queue at the ticket office considerably shorter, and mostly undercover. This time, I waited and bought my ticket.

When I got downstairs to the exhibition space, I could see where the queue had gone. I've never seen the place so packed! It's great to see ACMI doing so well like this, but a shame that it was so hard to check out the exhibition through the crowds. I liked what I saw though, and maybe I'll go again in a few months, if it looks a little less crowded then.

I was sorry that they don't allow photography inside; there was some amazing artwork, costumes and sculpture that I'd have loved to have taken some shots of. It was well worth the effort to see the exhibition, though.

Next up: the NGV's winter masterpieces show, but not until at least after the school holidays!

not diggin' it

Notwithstanding the good news about Ms Gillard, a scan of the newspapers makes me start to wonder whether perhaps we all waste our time at the ballot box.

It sounds to me as though a gang of bully miners have hijacked the government, and are determined to set economic policy for the country, with, of course, the full support of the obnoxious mad monk and his arch-conservative cronies.

This is a key issue for me; Julia cannot back down on the mining tax issue. She must call the miners' bluff and ensure that the a fair share of the profits from the mining of our country come back to the people, and stop allowing these bullies to skim the money from our pockets.

If they don't like it, I'm sure other miners will find a way to make a reasonable profit under the new rules.

Julia... an important first

I was delighted to find out about Julia Gillard's rise to the PM-ship whilst I was o/s. It's way past time that we finally have our first atheist Prime Minister!

Soccer comes out

Soccer Officially Announces It Is Gay

the big day arrives

The time has come; the bags are packed; the flat's in lock-down mode; everything's ready to go... just counting down 'til it's time to go to the airport - London, here I come! :-)

DC Comics 75th anniversary at Fed Square

This will be a sight worth seeing on Saturday! DC Comics' 75th anniversary comes to Fed Square. Gotta beat those poms!

20 left

Can't believe how fast the time has passed... 20 days 'til I head off to London! I'm already stressing about what I've forgotten to do. Is it too soon to pack yet? :-)

twilight zone

"New freeway is top priority: state". WTF?

Did I wake up in some sort of alternate reality where Victoria has a great public transport system, lots of trains (that work), trams that aren't overcrowded, safe bike lanes and plenty of options for citizens in all areas to leave their cars at home?

A reality where petrol is cheap and non-polluting, and it's safe to encourage people to drive their cars everywhere??

Or is just that the Victorian government is so deeply in the pockets of the big petrol companies and roads lobby that it can no longer even pretend to give any precedence to decent public transport?

I'm so disgusted by this headline that I will never again vote for this government. Clearly, they are completely corrupt and out-of-touch with the real world. They can keep their Twilight Zone; I'm looking for someone to vote for in the real world!

stark contrast

Couldn't wait to get to the cinema to see Iron Man 2 this week. Ok, I knew it wouldn't be, like, Oscar material or anything, but I'd mostly enjoyed the original, and I expected that this would be good too, and besides, there's been *nothing* of interest to me out of Hollywood in more weeks than I can recall.

I settled on the 11am session at the George. It was a mad rush to get there, 'coz I'm not the earliest riser on a Sunday, but we made it just in time. It was worth the effort, because, aside from the 3 of us, there were only about 4 or 5 other people in a huge cinema, so it was a very comfortable experience, and *much* better then slumming it at the over-crowded Jam Factory.

The movie itself was a delight! Robert Downey Jr brings a light-hearted touch that absolutely makes these movies, and makes them stand out from many of the other comic-based films of the past decade or so. Gwyneth Paltrow and Jon Favreau nicely reprise their roles as Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan respectively. Don Cheadle makes a fine replacement as War Machine, Mickey Rourke is excellent as Whiplash, and then there's one of my favourite modern film stars, Scarlett Johansson, as the Black Widow. Truthfully, she's the only let-down in the cast; not through any fault of hers, but because she doesn't get anywhere near enough to contribute in any meaningful way to the story. I know that she isn't meant to be the star attraction of the film, but I would have liked to have seen her role expanded considerably.

The plot is pretty basic, the action hard and loud (like the soundtrack music by AC/DC!). The battle at the Monaco Grand Prix was fun, as was the climactic fight at the Stark Expo. I enjoyed this film more than the first one, largely because they left out the politics this time - no Muslim terror groups threatening American interests this time around, just good old-fashioned bad guys causing trouble to Tony and the gang. Good stuff! I'd give this film 4 stars, for pure entertainment value.

the mad monk steals our democracy

I seem to recall that at the last Federal election, we voted in a Labor government to run the country for the next term. And yet it seems that, every time that government announces a new initiative, it's immediately followed by a news bite of the mad monk, Tony Abbott announcing that it's all really just another new tax, and that he doesn't support it, so he'll block it in the Senate.

Since when does the Senate run the government? Does Abbott not understand that we voted for the other guy to make the decisions? Why has he decided to hijack the country and rule it from the Senate, instead of letting the government do the job that we voted them in to do?

I'm tired of his arrogant negativity; it's time he showed some real leadership and thought about what might be good for the country, instead of what might help his own political stocks. He's the absolute worst kind of politician imaginable - the rat who undermines the interests of his country in order to further his own personal ambitions.

In the meantime, we all suffer as he and his cohorts pervert the democratic system for their own benefit.