hardtack

Ok, let's have no captains or vice captains at all... we can become an anarcho syndiclastic football club where everyone is a leader. The reason there is a captain is so that there is one person on the field of play who can take the responsibility of pulling the team together when things are starting to go awry. Unfortunately, it often happens that the added responsibility that goes with the position can detract from the players ability to focus on his own game... I see Jones as being one player who would relish the added pressure and raise his game to another level while inspiring his team mates.

I disagree... give Jones the captaincy and he will lead us (by example) into finals contention. I get the feeling that he commands respect from the entire playing group and that he has a quality that the two Jacks are lacking in at the moment... he is an inspirational footballer. Name another player in our side who is regularly talked up in a positive way by the media... I can't think of one. I have said it before and will say it again... Nathan for capt with Grimes as his deputy.

And lastly, a little bit of relatively intelligent J-Pop from Utada Hikaru who composes all of her own material (unusual in the world of J-Pop) - note that the film clip was directed by her ex-husband who was responsible for directing the films Casshern and Goemon (if anyone is familiar with them).

A couple of random selections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__obh4w6tD8

I've been building a pile of blu ray discs to watch starting Sunday... a few on that pile I now have, in no particular order: Wreck it Ralph (3D) Life of Pi (3D) Storm Surfers (3D) Man With the Iron Fists Seven Psychopaths Samsara Intouchable Quatermass and the Pit Earth Vs Flying Saucers Marley Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (3D) Beasts of the Southern Wild The Qatsi Trilogy Cabin in the Woods The Who Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 Busy times ahead!

Saw Jo Jo Zep a few weeks ago at Bimbadgen winery In the Hunter Valley on a bill headlined by Elvis Costello and accompanied by The Sunnyboys, Tex Perkins and Steve Cummings. Great show, and Jo Jo Zep were possibly better than they were back in the 70's!

Infected Mushroom have a whole collection of remixed Doors songs... they are all excellent.

The Doors "Love Me Two Times" Infected Mushroom remix: The Doors "Roadhouse Blues" Infected Mushroom remix:

Not a big fan of Gaga myself as she strikes me as being a bit too "fabricated"... Tarantino on the other hand, I do feel is genuinely eccentric and seems to always be doing something... directing, acting, writing or producing. I see that he is currently working on Kill Bill 3 with Uma Thurman, so I would think that if Gaga is going to be in one of his projects, it will be in whatever he plans to do after that is out of the way. While I was searching around for what that might be, I did see that Gaga is going to be appearing in Rodriguez's new film "Machete Kills" (sequel to "Machete") as someone named Le Chameleon... but I somehow doubt that will get her an Oscar nomination :-) It's obvious that you are a Tarantino fan, so if you aren't aware of him already, I recommend you watch some movies by Japanese director Takashi Miike; Tarantino, appeared acting in one of his films which was coincidentally titled "Sukiyaki Western Django". He makes films that are very "out there" such as "13 Assassins", "Ichi the Killer", "Visitor Q" and "Happiness of the Katakuris" (my favourite) etc etc... now his films really are worth catching.Another Japanese director who has a connection with Tarantino is Katsuhito Ishii, who was responsible for the animated sequence in "Kill Bill 1" - I love his films (despite that KB1 segment, they are live action and NOT animations) and find him to be a bit of a Japanese David Lynch... films include "Shark Skin Man, Peach Hip Girl", "Party 7", "The Taste of Tea" etc. Anyway, enough for now... I tend to get a bit carried away when I get onto film talk... sorry :-)

Well, it would be pretty boring if we all liked the same things. I would have been a bit worried if you had said the only character you became emotionally attached to was the cook :-)

Actually, I didn't mind that "Taking Woodstock" film too much, but I really didn't like The Hulk at all. Until "Life of Pi", I had preferred his earlier material like "The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman" - and of course I liked "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Not a student of film, but have always been a fan since my teens - when I was studying at Swinburne in the early 70's, I used to go every Friday night to the late night supper show at the Trak Cinema where you would catch a lot of good European cinema... now I just collect films on DVD/Blu ray... anything and everything ranging from classics such as Metropolis, Cabinet of Dr Caligari, through animations such as early Disney, Bugs Bunny, Studio Ghibli, and current - lately getting into a bit of 3D now we have the big screen LG. I like to accumulate by director as well.. so I have a lot of Fellini, Lynch, Herzog, Kurosawa, Yimou, Tim Burton, Jarmusch, Tarantino etc.

Saw "Life of Pi" today and have to say it is pretty close to being the "perfect" film. The imagery, the story, the acting...everything about this film oozes class and has restored my faith in Ang Lee as a director. There are a couple of scenes that didn't quite work so well, but overall it struck all of the right emotional chords without being too melodramatic. Not a violent film, not an action film (although there are a couple of scenes that have you on the edge of the seat) and despite it employing a lot of generated effects, it is not even a film that strikes as being effects laden. I loved it, my partner loved it and my 10 year old son loved it. It's hard to describe and do it justice, but suffice to say that it works on so many levels and it had me wanting to see it again before we had reached home.

I have the double blu ray pack of Death Proof and Planet Terror, but am yet to watch them; will let you know my thoughts once I get a long enough kid-free moment to watch them :-)

I found it a bit strange that the restaurant scene in Kill Bill 1 (The House of Blue Leaves) was shown in black and white because it was deemed too graphic (in a bloody sense) to be shown in colour. I have the Japanese DVD which has the entire scene in colour, and the blood is so unreal that it actually enhances the scene. One of my favourite Tarantino films is one that he did not direct, but one that he wrote (and produced?) "True Romance"... also liked his cameo in the Rodriguez film "Desperado" (another of his productions).

I think Gere's one of those actors who seems to have improved with age...he did a more than serviceable job in the remake of the Japanese film "Shall We Dance" and in the film "Hachi: A Dog's Tale" which was also a take on a Japanese story.On Monday I'm taking my 10 year old son to see "Life of Pi"...looking forward to that.

Liked that film a lot...Anthony Hopkins and Ben Mendelsohn.

Just received my order of the Frankenweenie 3D blu ray, so will be sitting down with the kids tonight to watch that...loved it at the cinema. Now waiting on Lawless, Intouchable and Samsara to arrive sometime around mid Feb and hopefully next week will receive the new RPG for PS3 called Ni No Kuni which is designed (illustrated) by Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli... it's for my kids, but they are going to have to fight me for it first ;-)

Colors... another great film with a superb soundtrack. One of my favourite Penn films is State of Grace (about the Irish mob in NYC's Hell Kitchen) where he is teamed up with Ed Harris and Gary Oldman. In my opinion, it's the equal of Goodfellas.

Yes, I like the look of Gangster Squad..seeing Sean Penn's name in the cast had me sold on it immediately! The other bluray I've pre-ordered is The Man with the Iron Fists...another over the top Tarantino production directed by, and featuring RZA.

I just had a couple of DVDs/blu rays arrive today which I'm looking forward to watching when I get a moment... Quatermass and the Pit and The Best of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - Not Only, But Also.

No, I hadn't realised that...but I do remember spending a lot of time in the area in the 70s at various music venues in the area...Kingston Hotel, Tiger Room etc.

I already have the blu ray pre-ordered from Amazon...no release date yet :-)

Yes, a good film from Richard Lowenstein (responsible for early Hunters and Collectors clip "Talking to a Stranger") - was a platform for Michael Hutchence. Lowenstein also made the excellent Strikebound (his first big film).

It disappeared up its own fundament.

I was at both the Kooyong and Randwick Racecourse concerts in support of the release of Exile on Main Street... at Randwick, they arrived at the stage in a big white horse drawn carriage, which was pretty funny; but despite the quality of those concerts, as far as best rock act/performance I've ever seen, they were outclassed (in my opinion) by The Clash at Sydney's Capitol Theatre during their Magnificent Seven tour.