Happy 2008!

Another year down, another year where I have to work on New Year's Day.
I wish everyone a better year in 2008 than 2007 was.

The 2007 Raymo awards

We've come to the end of a pretty decent year of film and I saw 32 movies at the cinema.
It's a tough one to pick but it has been made easier by having five films rate a 9/10, I had four 8.5s and nine 8/10s so that's 17 of the 32 rating an eight or better. A quality year.
Here are the top five films of 2007.....

1. Reign Over Me
An absolutely stunning film about Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler), a man who lost his way after his family was taken in the September 11 attacks. Sandler is amazing in this role. He's completely shut down and lives a life that revolves around entertaining himself without having to face reality. Until he meets an old friend who needs healing in his own way. A moving film about friendship and a deserved number one.
2. Into The Wild
The true story of 24-year-old Chris McCandless, who in 1992 donated all his money to charity and abandoned his life to discover America, and himself. Directed by Sean Penn, this film is breathtaking from the scenery, the brilliant performance by Emile Hirsch and the subtle messages about life it tells. In any other year this would be a clear number one but just misses out.
3. Breach
An acting tour de force with Chris Cooper and Ryan Phillippe facing off as a corrupt FBI agent and the junior brought in by the authorities to bring him down. The fantastic Laura Linney also shines here. Based on the true story of Robert Hanssen, they get the mystery of what happens at the end out of the way right at the start so you can get down to finding out how he came unstuck. Not a flashy film at all, very bleak in appearance but outstanding in every way.
4. The Simpsons Movie
A change of pace from the top three and this surprises nobody. Pretty much a really, really good 90 minute episode of the longest running animated TV show and it holds up. There are superhero pigs (well just one), dares, nude scenes and environmental distasters - just your standard Simpsons fare. Very fun, particularly if you're a fan like me.
5. Spider-Man 3
Some people thought there was too much stuffed in to this movie and it became a bit crowded. I see the point but maybe I am a bit biased because I love Spiderman in a favourite superhero kind of way. They handled Venom well and I thought Topher Grace was good in that role. I thought it was at least as good as Spider-Man 2.

So that's the top five and a pretty solid one at that. If you haven't seen the top three, as they weren't major blockbuster releases like the other two I wholly recommend them. If you like thought provoking films, excellent acting and a good drama they are well and truly must sees.

Honourable mentions go to: The Number 23, Transformers, Amazing Grace, Death At A Funeral and the hugely under rated Australian film Noise.
Surprise of the year: the infectious musical Hairspray.
Runner-up: the Australian league film The Final Winter.
Flop of the year: I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry - all the funny bits were in the preview. Sandler gets best and worst film of the year in a rare feat.

See you at the movies in 2008, a year which at the moment is looking a bit patchy with Prince Caspian looking a mid-year highlight.

Season 4!

Yesterday I picked up the long awaited box set of One Tree Hill season 4.
So I'm about to get back into the best show on the box (my box anyway, it's still not on normal TV and don't think it ever will be now) after what seems like quite a while away.
With season 5 starting soon in the States a lot of interest is in what happens in the second half of this season - the part I haven't seen yet.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

The 32nd and possibly last movie of the year for me is the family adventure National Treasure: Book Of Secrets starring Nicholas Cage as Ben Gates.
Now I didn't see the original, for reasons unknown at this time, but it wasn't tough to follow for a newbie.
Gates is searching for the Book Of Secrets, a presidential tome that holds the answers to all the big questions in the world but that the world need not know (apparently), to clear the name of an ancestor who was allegedly involved in the assassination of Lincoln.
Yeah it is far fetched. But you know it is also quite fun. The support cast is first class including Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris, Jon Voigt and Helen Mirren. But it is Ben's sidekick Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) that really impressed me. He was the comic relief.
This isn't the greatest film by any means but it is enjoyable, light, and good fun. Sometimes that's all you need in a movie. A 7 out of 10.
Coming in a few days is the all important 2007 review so stay tuned....

End of an era

OK, so a while back I eluded to making a decision on something I have been doing for a while. It's not an earth-shattering, life-changing decision (actually it is rather trivial) but when you've been doing something for 16 years and you decide not to it is quite momentus.
As most people know I am a bit of a music nut and since 1991 I have been compiling my own music charts, both because when I started it was fun and as a way to keep up with what was happening with music.
I have a rather thick folder with every music chart I have done since then including a top 100 for the year (except the last 2 years when I didn't do the end of year one) and I have a list of every song that has been number 1 and how many weeks it was there.
But, disappointingly, the music scene these days is pretty ordinary. Maybe I am just getting old, but a lot of the music out there now really doesn't interest me and seems to be dominated by inane rap/R&B stuff.
So as of this week I will no longer be doing my music charts.
It started in 1991 and my top five songs of 5/1/1991 were as follows:
1. Let's Make It Last All Night-Jimmy Barnes
2. Unchained Melody-Righteous Brothers
3. Disapper-INXS
4. Always & Ever-Southern Sons
5. I Touch Myself-Divinyls

The final chart, for the week ending 5/1/2008 is as follows.
1. Believe Again-Delta Goodrem
2. In Pieces-Shannon Noll
3. Touched By Love-Eran James
4. Misery-Good Charlotte
5. Into The Night-Santana featuring Chad Kroeger

Make of those what you will. My music taste is pretty eclectic but has remained fairly constant over the years. Following are some statistics about my musical experience in the last 16 years.
Most weeks at number 1: How To Save A Life-The Fray (21), Lift-Shannon Noll (20), If You Could Only See-Tonic (19), Over My Head (Cable Car)-The Fray (17), One Sweet Day-Mariah Carey & Boyz II Men (16), Spending My Time-Roxette (15).
Most number 1's: Mariah Carey (19), Roxette (14), Savage Garden/Darren Hayes (14), Shannon Noll (8), Kylie Minogue (8).
Interestingly, my three favourite songs I'll Be There For You (Rembrandts), Hero (Mariah Carey) and Crash And Burn (Savage Garden) spent five, one and 13 weeks at number one respectively.
In a way it is going to be strange not doing this anymore but I see no point. There's only really 10 or so songs I like at any one time on the radio/video shows so doing a chart seems redundant. Plus, as you would note from some of the artists that have dominated I am a creature of habit and still like their music. Yeah, I am a dag. But the 80s-90s were just awesome for music and the 00s have not been as significant, except for a few artists here and there.
So there you have it, the end of an era. I am glad I am going out with a number 1 that I really, really like, a positive uplifting song and, at the end of the day, that is what music should do for you. Now if only I listened to myself on that one.....

Merry Christmas

Having awoken from an afternoon nap (which I think I have needed all day) I offer somewhat belated Christmas greetings to everyone.
It has been a strange one today, quite cool (weather wise) by our standards and while that is not something to complain about it makes it an unusual Christmas. But, nevertheless, a good one.

No Festivus miracles

I think that's a good thing. As a general rule festivus miracles tend to be rather unfortunate or uncomfortable and involved chance situations that you'd rather not have to endure.
So, in honur of Festivus 2007 I announce my grievances....
1. The politicians who kept sending the same propaganda to me on a daily basis in the last couple of weeks of the election. They know who they are.
2. The guy responsible for taking EI out of the quarantine centre and destroying the spring carnival.
3. Kylie Minogue for releasing a mediocre album as her comeback from cancer. C'mon the electronica stuff didn't really work for Madonna a few years ago, why will it work now?
4. Channel 7 for now showing the last 2 episodes of the current season of Heroes (thank God for the internet or I'd have to wait until February to see them).
5. Yet again Channel 10 for not showing One Tree Hill and to whoever is responsible for releasing it on DVD and making us wait until goodness known when (again thanks to importing things on your own we don't have to wait so long).
6. Magpies
7. The canteen ladies at work who refuse to carry out the simple instructions you give on how you'd like your toast spread.

That's all I can think of right now. Happy Festivus everyone!

Slight revision

It's one thing to be witty and clever unintentionally, or naturally.
It's another to be a try-hard.
In refocusing this blog I fell guilty of the latter.
So, now that I have realised I was getting ahead of myself thinking I could describe each post with a deftly placed song title was short sighted I am backing out of that pledge.
Call it a re-refocusing.
The content will still have more depth, most of the time, and I don't have to be a try-hard.

You can still be free

Summer in Sydney - muggy, then rains, still muggy, sunshine, finally a cool breeze. Until it starts all over again.
Still, 26 degrees or so is a lot nicer than it could be. Enough about the weather.
Today was a bit surreal. I went out to Randwick races for the first time in what seemed like ages, it's probably been six months at least.
I was drawn out there to watch a particular racehorse, Takeover Target, race and he didn't let me down. Though there was an anxious moment there on the winning post.
A bit of an absence from the track lately for me meant I hadn't seen quite a few people I usually mix with so it was good to resurface and catch up with them.
A sense of freedom today.
It's been a pretty massive week or so and I've held up fairly well. Topping off a big week with another day out (and a trip to the races is equal to any working day) isn't something I've done a lot of this year. So be in a positiion where I seem to have no problem (to date anyway) with it is very enouraging.
That's about it, a nice day and here's to many more. By the way, tomorrow is Festivus - I will have to think of some grievances. But that's another issue.

* You Can Still Be Free is a song by Savage Garden

Standing still

Fear is an interesting thing.
It can make you do things you didn't think you were capable of. At the same time it can make you feel like less of a person, sometimes unable to function.
Over the past year I have swung in between both those descriptions. Much to my frustration I am unable to explain how it reached such extremes.
The times when you feel invincible, strong and powerful are awesome. When you feel weak, vulnerable and powerless are frightening.
Again, to my dismay, one day it's the former the next it's the latter and there doesn't seem to be a reason. OK sometimes there is a reason. My mind, like most people I imagine, can work overtime on things it really shouldn't.
It jumps on a bandwagon of thought and just runs with it until all possible scenarios have been brought to my attention. While insight is a good thing, too much insight is counter-productive.
I am trying to learn not to dwell on what has been. Focusing on now and what is to come is much more positive but again it depends what day I am on.
The bible says that worry won't add a second to a person's life but we still do it. We feel like it is protecting us from the bad things of the world. In the end worrying just makes us less surprised and more frightened of the unknown.
I've been through that. Am I out the other side?
I don't know. Some days I am sure it is behind me. Other days I am back at square one. Perhaps not square one but maybe square two or three.
I haven't been standing still completely. There has been definite, irrefutable evidence of steps forward. Not fast enough though.

* Standing Still is a song by Jewel

1408

Before I begin this review of the film 1408 I have to declare that I am a huge John Cusack fan.
Based on a Stephen King short story 1408 is about writer Mike Enslin (Cusack), a fairly lightly taken ghost and ghouls story writer who documents the scariest places to visit and such.
Then he stumbles upon the Dolphin Hotel in New York and the room 1408 which for unknown reasons continues to feature in suicide reports in newspapers. Enslin seeks out this room for his next spooky tale.
Enter the hotel manager (Samuel L Jackson, in what is almost a cameo role) who goes to extraordinary lengths (for `selfish reasons') to dissuade Mike from spending the night in 1408.
I think you get the drift from here.
This film is very intense. It's not scary nor does it attempt the tacky thrills of movies such as Saw and the so-called horror films.
It is unsettling when you realise what the movie is really about. If you see this one expecting to see some grand twist or explanation as to why the room as it is let me spoil it for you - there isn't one. It's not about that.
We all have a past and Mike takes his with him into 1408. That's where the real scares come from.
This is all John Cusack's film, as you would expect, and he doesn't disappoint for a second. One of the final lines in the movie struck me - `bad memories can't be thrown away, you just have to live with them' - and I think this is the moral to the story.
I'm pretty confident I haven't spoiled the story. There is no mystery to be unpacked. It's all about Mike. And it's all about us.
An 8 out of 10 and worthy of a look if it appeals to you.

A change will do you good

I've been thinking about this blog and have decided I am going to change focus and make it much less trivial that it is currently.
It isn't that I don't enjoy the content here, on the whole, but if I am going to continue I think it is of more value to make it more real.
The value there is for me, largely, but if through what I might say that someone out there reads (assuming others read it) and learns from my experience then that's a good thing.
I'm not going to say that every post will contain life experiences, deep insight or anything particularly exceptional but I am saying I intend from now to be more real than trivial, because I hate that a lot of the world is seemingly trivial.
I will attempt to have some fun at the same time. My favourite show at the moment, One Tree Hill (what else, after all I named this blog after it), gets all its episode names from song titles. So I'm going to try to head up each post that fulfils my new charter in that manner (starting with this one)*. I will still post my ever popular movie reviews and music comments, both because most people (including me sometimes) feel I missed my calling as an entertainment reporter.
Let's see how it goes....

* The song `A Change Will Do You Good' is by Sheryl Crow.

The Anthem of 2007

I participated in a survey on the Anthem of 2007 and am shocked and dismayed at the songs they proposed (ok it was a ninemsn thing but still).
Of those listed I could only rate Fergie's Big Girls Don't Cry as a good song (though Silverchair's Straight Lines is a good song but I'm sick of it).
I propose the Anthem of 2007 is How To Save A Life by The Fray.
While I have an eclectic taste in music I don't like the crap that is being constantly at the top of the charts these days.
As a result, coming soon is an announcement that will see the end of an era....

Back at the track

It's been a big week and today it continued with a trip to the races for the first time in over five months.
It was great to get back out there and despite being pretty hot, I had a good day all round. Wrapped it up with a barbecue at a mate's place with a very nice bunch of people and it's been one of those awesome days.
Thank goodness it is Sunday tomorrow!

Die Hard and other random things

After almost 20 years I have finally seen Die Hard, yes the original action film starring Bruce Willis that has been sequalised three times (and funnily enough I have seen the three subsequent films).
And I've got to say it holds up pretty well despite being a product of the tragic late 1980s. That's largely due to Willis and Alan Rickman's character (he's a seriously under-rated actor).
So I enjoyed it and that blight on my movie credibility is now gone.

I was given the first series of The Chaser's War On Everything on DVD for Christmas by the family (yes I know Christmas is another 12 days away but I won't be there for it) and it is a very welcome addition to the collection. I haven't seen most of the first series as I only discovered the show on repeats earlier this year. The Brokeback Mountain - Christian Edition and Twenty20 Lawn Bowls were some early highlights and I'm sure there will be more.

My week off has flown by and it has been a good one. Caught up with a good mate I hadn't seen for a while on Monday, which was nice, and discovered he's planning to be part of a short term mission to Cambodia next year.

I bought the book Into The Wild, which the film I saw recently (and loved, reviewed further down the page) is based on. Have just started it so can't make any further comments yet. If you haven't seen the film, you're missing out on one of the year's best.

Plenty of festivities happening this weekend, hope there are enough hours in the days....

Ventilation

Time to breathe a bit.
I have a week off (well, technically nine days if you count weekends and nine days sounds better than five!) and while it won't nearly be long enough it is very well received.
Generally I am in pretty good shape (touch wood) and am doing my getting out of the ratrace ritual in a couple of days time.
As much as I have learned over the year I still need to learn how to cool off properly, how to switch off the mind and not get caught up in things I have no business being concerned about.
I have an extended break planned for March so this week off is just a freshen up so I don't go six months between holidays. If you call a week a holiday.
This time last year things weren't exactly brilliant and downward spiral is a pretty good description of where I was placed. Fortunately (again touch wood) I am nowhere near that kind of scenario and thank God for that.
Learning how to live is difficult, small steps are needed when, of course, giant leaps are what I want to take.

Not so Divine

Shock news today that Divinyls singer Chrissie Amphlett has suffered from MS for several years.
I saw her performing at the Idol grand final and she looked fine so it is a testament to her strength and determination. Hearing her talk about it today there have obviously been hard times, and there will be more, but given she's embarking on a national tour with the Divinyls says a lot about her.
Many of us could learn from her experience and I hope I can.

Into The Wild

Everybody is searching for something.
For Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch) it's the great American adventure, to throw off the burdens of society and lead a free, basic life.
That freedom comes at a cost. But it's a cost that Chris doesn't realise, or at least refuses to acknowledge.
Directed by Sean Penn, Into The Wild is all class. It's a grand presentation starring nature itself, the breathtaking wilderness where society's rules don't apply.
Chris is a smart young man, university educated and a man who would have whatever he wanted in life, the life that the society he despises so much would give him. He's not destitute, as he points out, but he's very much running away from his life.
It is remarkable how naive Chris is, at least that is how he comes across when you consider what he is running from. Clearly he has been hurt but he also doesn't realise how what he is doing affects others. The reality of what he has done doesn't hit him until very late but when it does it is heartbreaking.
Along the way Chris, who changes his name to Alexander Supertramp, meets a number of interesting people including a hippie couple (one of which is the excellent Catherine Keener), a Scandinavian couple, an enterprising wheat farmer called Wayne (Vince Vaughn) and a lonely old man who takes Chris into his home and into his heart and begs Chris not to continue his journey to Alaska.
This is a long film but it doesn't really feel like it. It has to be a long film because to tell this story in 90 minutes wouldn't do it justice. Emile Hirsch, who I admit had never heard of before) is outstanding and he has to be for you to invest in the story. Into The Wild is warm, funny at times, but also very stark and real. It's a journey worth taking. A must see. A 9 out of 10.