Management training meets the kitchen

Yeah, I know, I’m not a very handsome bloke.

Still, I fancy myself as an amateur chef, which is why I enjoyed the opportunity I had recently to cook in a commercial kitchen as part of a team-building exercise we did at the Valley.

I wrote an article on my experiences, Management training meets the kitchen which was published in the latest edition of the Australian Institute of Training & Development journal. Looks pretty good, huh?

Thanks to Vin Lowe for his great photos.

Welcome CAE students

A big hello to any of my fellow CAE Professional Writing & Editing students who may be visiting this site for the first time.

Take a look around the site – if you like what you see, you can subscribe to receive an email whenever I update my blog by clicking here, or by clicking on the Receive Posts Via Email link on the sidebar.

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Photo credit: Macwagen

Short Story – Stranded

Photo credit: LovelyV

One of my subjects this year is Short Story Online.

I was a bit nervous about entering the big, scary world of fiction writing – I reckon the last time I wrote any pure fiction was back in High School. (Obviously this excludes tall stories, sledging of mates, creative accounting and Bledisloe tour profiles).

Anyway, this story was the first exercise we had to submit for assessment this year. We had to write about a situation where three people were thrown together in some way. We had to invent a crisis and show how it affects the characters. Then two of the characters have to get away from the other one, and we had to write about what they do next and how they see the third character. All in 800 words.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out. Let me know what you think.

Stranded

Movie Review – There Will Be Blood

Yes, there was blood. There was also:

• Plenty of oil;
• Some fine acting from Daniel Day-Lewis, intersperced with a few over-indulgent scenes;
• Some pretty crappy fonts in the opening and closing credits;
• An annoying soundtrack;
• No female characters of any substance;
• A running time that was 45 minutes too long

A disappointed 3 stars from this reviewer.

PS – is it just me, or is DD-L a dead ringer for Magnum PI?

Daniel Day-Lewis

Magnum PI

Movie Review: The Number 23

Jim Carrey stars in this fairly ordinary psychological thriller, based on a real life conspiracy-theory school of thought that attributes a mystical power to the number 23.

Walter Sparrow (Carrey) is a run-of-the-mill dog catcher who slowly comes to believe that a novel he is reading was written about him. The main character in the novel, Fingerling, is obsessed with the number 23, and this obsession is picked up by Sparrow, who begins to see evidence of the number everywhere.

Not that it’s hard to do when you try: a street address of 599 translates to 5 + 9 + 9 = 23; the colour pink is made up of red and white, whose numerical descriptors add up to 92, which divided by 4 = 23; ohmygod, my own initials are BC, that’s 2 + 3 = 23 and I was born on the second of December, that’s 2 + 1 + 2 = 2 + 3 = 23. And when we added the five digits on the cat’s registration collar, what do you think they added to? That’s right, 23.

Director Joel Schumacher (Phone Booth, 8MM, Batman Forever) has a lot of fun adding in plenty of superfluous 23 sightings into the action; in fact I found ‘spotting the 23s’ the most engaging part of the film. Guess how many chapters on the DVD?

The action switches between the real life world of Walter Sparrow and his caring wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen), and the imaginary world of Sparrow’s novel-based alter ego, Fingerling. The film-makers incorporate some dark Sin City-style imagery into this fantasy world, and in a nice touch which exacerbates the sense of Sparrow’s obsession, Carrey and Madsen also play the highly stylised lead roles in Fingerling-world.

The premise of an enigmatic, magical number had some promise, but generally the plot was far-fetched and unconvincing. The actors do their part competently, the production team does theirs, but at the end of the day, if it looks like a dog and smells like a dog, in all probability it is a dog.

Famous Number 23s: Michael Jordan, David Beckham, Shane Warne, Mark Bolton…spooky.

2.3 stars

On a roll

Some more good news – my travel article on free things to do in Melbourne was published in the Dominion newspaper (Wellington, NZ) today.

Here is a copy of the article: Take a free ride in Melbourne

Finally – My Own Byline

Well, after a few close calls and near misses I can finally say I’ve had a feature article published with my own byline.

The article, An Affordable Hobby, appeared in the features section of the Sunday Territorian newspaper yesterday.

I guess I can even say I made the front page – you can see from the screenshot above there is a reference to my article in the yellow box. For the benefit of my overseas readers, when you make the front page in Darwin, you know you’ve really made it big.

I found out on Thursday that the article was going to appear in the paper on Sunday. The only problem was working out how to get hold of a copy. I tried the Melbourne Airport newsagencies (much to the amusement of my son); would you believe it, they stocked the Hobart Mercury, Courier Mail, Western Australian, Sunday Advertiser, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Canberra Times – every Sunday paper except the one I wanted.

Then I thought of McGills newsagency in town, but they aren’t open Sundays…

So in the end I had to wait for the editor to send me the pdf of my article. I received it this afternoon, which finally put me out of my misery.

Special thanks to Scott Healy, Phil Read, Fiona Read, Alistair Butcher, Jo McKinnon and Wakes for their assistance with the article. I couldn’t have done it without you guys.

Movie Review – The Jammed

The Jammed is an independent Australian film which deals with the confronting subject of the sex slave trade in Australia. Writer/director Dee McLachlan has based the screenplay on real life cases and court transcripts, adding an extra dimension of realism to the film.

Ashley (Veronica Sywak) is a young Melbournian office-worker who becomes inadvertently involved with a Chinese woman, Sunee (Amanda Ma) and her search for her missing daughter Rubi (Sun Park).

Rubi has been brought illegally to Australia by human traffickers, who force her into a life of prostitution and virtual slavery. The film follows the lives of Rubi and fellow sex workers Crystal (Emma Lung) and Vanya (Saskia Bermeister), as they are physically and mentally abused by sleazy illegal brothel owner Vic Glassman (Andrew S Gilbert) and his gang of henchman.

The plot moves along briskly but without any major twists or surprises, and the performances of the cast, particularly Sywak and Lung, are strong and believable. Generally the writing is strong – McLachlan says the script was virtually unchanged from her first draft – though I found some of the scenes in the immigration holding centre a little contrived and unbelievable.

The film was shot on location in Melbourne, and I enjoyed seeing familiar sights and streetscapes woven into the plot. Much of the action takes place in moving cars, which I found a bit grating after a while. The choice of locations is superb, conveying a dark and street-wise view of inner-suburban Melbourne, and adding to the gritty atmosphere of the film.

Incredibly McLachlan was unable to secure any funding for the movie, and could not even find a distributor, instead having to pay marketing costs and share profits in exchange for a limited two-week season at Cinema Nova. Critical reviews to date have been strong, and the session I attended was virtually fully sold out, which hopefully will translate into a wider release for the film.

Movie Review – This is England

‘This is England’ is set smack bang in the middle of Thatcher’s Britain, circa 1983. The Falkland War is in full swing and there are 3.5 million unemployed and disillusioned Brits.

Shaun, brilliantly portrayed by 14 year-old debutante Thomas Turgoose, is a lonely misfit, bullied at school about the death of his father in the war. He falls in with a rough-looking but likeable group of skinheads, who provide him with a sense of identity and friendship.

The skinheads, led by Woody (Joseph Gilgun) are fairly harmless; their short haircuts, Ben Sherman shirts and Doc Marten boots making them appear more sinister than they really are. The group introduces Shaun to girls, parties and dope, and life is fine until the unexpected appearance of hard-core nationalist Combo (Stephen Graham), just out after a three year spell in jail.

The dynamics of the group change rapidly, with Combo espousing racist National Front propaganda and driving a wedge between himself and the more moderate and likeable Woody.

Combo’s short fuse is barely suppressed, with an undercurrent of tension following him through every scene – think Once Were Warriors’ Jake the Muss at his malevolent worst.

Inevitably, Combo’s emotions reach breaking point, with tragic and violent consequences. Shaun is a shocked observer, and is forced to reassess his friendships and view of the world.

The film is based largely on the youthful experiences of writer/director Shane Meadows, who does a fabulous job of capturing the mood and emotions of the time.

My only quibble was the difference in age between Shaun and the gang, which made some of the plot lines slightly unbelievable.

In all an engrossing and highly enjoyable file.

4 stars from me.

4.5 stars and some tears from Wakes.

Movie Review – Knocked Up

Wakes, Tim and I saw Knocked Up on Saturday night. Here is my review:

The creative team that brought you The 40 Year-Old Virgin is back again with Knocked Up, a comedy dealing with the roller-coaster ride of unexpected pregnancy.

Glamourous TV producer Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is promoted to an on-air roll, and goes out clubbing with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) to celebrate.

Aptly named stoner Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is at the same club with his motley band of friends, and can’t believe his luck when he hooks up with so-far-out-of-his-league-it’s-not-funny Alison. Our drunken, lust-struck couple head back to Alison’s place for some clumsy and unprotected horizontal folk dancing before passing out unconscious.

The site of Ben’s man boobs and Simpsonesque bum crack first thing the next morning alert Alison to the fact that maybe, just maybe, she might have made a mistake. An embarrassing breakfast goes on to reveal that as well as being incredibly hung-over, Ben is also a slob and a buffoon. Alison beats a hasty retreat and Ben is left to curse his ineptitude with women.

Eight weeks later, Alison is horrified to discover she is pregnant. Ben is also a little surprised when he finds out. The movie goes on to recount the highs and lows of Alison’s pregnancy, and the ups and downs of the couple’s relationship, which run in parallel to the experiences of Debbie and her henpecked husband Pete (Paul Rudd).

Like The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up is pretty much a one-joke film. Despite this, there are a couple of very funny moments, and the main players are entertaining and believable. There are some excellent cameo performances, including TV executives Jack and Jill (Alan Tudyk and Kristen Wiig), and Ben’s band of slacker buddies led by Jason (Jason Segel).

Some of the scenes are over-written, and at 129 minutes the movie is about half an hour too long, but Knocked Up is still an enjoyable film, with plenty of laughs and a feel good ending.

3 stars.

I’m also submitting my reviews to the SBS Movie Show site. I’d recommend it as a good site to read some independent and generally well-written reviews by rank and file movie fans. The site also has some on-line tools that can be used to compile multi-media movie reviews. I’m going to stick to the text reviews for the moment, but if you’re interested, check out this review of Pan’s Labyrinth by ‘Refused Classification’ as a sample of what some of the people over there are doing.

The highlight of Knocked Up for me was Ben’s reaction on being told Alison was pregnant: “F*ck off!”