What do you think, David?

Had to - under extreme duress of course - review a few things for the entertainment section tonight.


First up is a reissue of this doco called The Thin Blue Line, which incidentally was one of the ONLY films I didn't fall asleep in during my Introduction To Cinema class at Uni.





"Errol Morris's groundbreaking 1988 documentary presents the case of Randal Adams, a drifter sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer.

A cast of real life players tell the meticulously plotted story, and Morris intercuts with reenactments, noirish close-ups and a decent pinch of Hitchcock.

The Thin Blue Line was intrumental in Adams' release from prison in 1989 and set a new benchmark for documentary film-making.

Neighsayers claim it's manipulative, and it is, but still deserves its reputation as modern classic."

FOUR STARS


>>>>>

Next, a CD - Carla Bruni. Loved this one.





"A former supermodel and one-time muse of Donald Trump sings the poetry of history's great stylists, from W.B. Yeats to Dorothy Parker.

On paper this should be flung directly into the 'embarassing career moves' bin, with Naomi Campell's 1994 debut 'Baby Woman'.

But Carla Bruni is no ordinary model dabbling in music for the cash.

The divine Italian/French beauty released her first album 'Quelqu'un m'a dit' (Someone Told Me) to amorous acclaim in 2005, then shifted 2 million copies of the thing.

Here, she's still in fine form, caressing the lyrics into syrupy, thinking-persons lounge music.

Like a blast of languid Parisian sunshine, 'No Promises' is ambitious, intelligent and effortless."

FOUR STARS


>>>>>>


Lastly, a real rockabilly number, a live album called Los Valientes Del Mundo from The Black Lips.

Never heard of em!!!





This live album was recorded one tequila stained evening in Tijuana, Mexico.

It sounds like these NYC groovers and their woozy audience all swallowed the worm.

Represented by cool-for-school indie mag VICE's new label, The Black Lips fancy themselves as breakneck pioneers in a world of overproduced slick rock.

And they might be onto something.

With an average age of just 22 years, these boys have been slumming around the underground scene for years, booking themselves and supporting the likes of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's.

What ensues is a slice of shambolic, psychedlic flower-punk amped off the dial.

Coming soon to a hipster houseparty near you."


THREE-AND-A-HALF STARS





(PS: I don't REALLY know what I'm talking about)

Coughing up Blog

I have to confess that this blog was inspired by the similar musings of my friend Nick, who is over in New York on a year's exchange with a design company.

This is Nick.




I can't believe the boy is only 20. He is a bit ahead of his time.

I first met him when he snuck a few of us in to see Martha Wainwright play at the Corner by drawing EXACT replicas of the pass-out stamp on our arms. It worked.

He is MADE for NYC. And he makes me want to live there more than ever.

Check out his work:

http://nicklemessurier.blogspot.com/


>>>>>>>>>


Another friend of mine, Chad, has a blog which is great.

Chad and I lived together in Sydney and he's over in London working as a video producer.





Chad is an enthusiastic...neigh, OBSESSIVE collator of pop culture. From Kelly Clarkson to Chicago: he hoovers up the top 40. And he reads alot. Of comics. And he doesnt mind a bit of YouTube. Or a sly boy band.

Then he tells people all about it.

http://lookwhatchaddid.blogspot.com



Do it!

Like A Rolling 'Stone

Allow me to introduce:

The enigmatic, the seductive...

Amanda Vanstone.

Best Dressed Woman in politics.























Just goes to show what a woman can do with a flattering skirt, a string of pearls and jaunty blouse.

More Than You Wanted To Know

At work there are specific cases which become 'de rigeur' and are intensely followed by the paper and the website.

It's pretty essential that we find a photograph to go with each story, for typesetting and colour purposes, and sometimes this requires a little creative thinking.

'Man sues drug company for having a non stop erection for three years' is a made-to-measure online story, but you cant very well have an accompanying thumnail which demonstrates the said affliction. So you go for something like this:





To find the pictures you hit a program called NewsImage, which is like Google Images gone troppo. Type in anything, anything, and a ream of photos come splurging onto the screen. 'Paris+Hilton' turns out something like 48,000 matches - not just because of the tacky broad of the same name but also because of the city, the hotel, etc.




(I actually quite like her)


But its not all lithe blondes and footy players. Sometimes, you're scouring the system for photos you'd rather not look at, know about, think about.

A case that has come up in the past week is the reappearence in court of this notorious SA paedophile by the name of Bevan Spencer von Einem. He sounds like an Austrian composer, but no. He is not.

Sometime in the 80's, Von Einem was sentenced to three decades in prison for kidnapping the 15-year-old son of a famous local newsreader. Von Einem tortured, drugged, raped and held the boy captive for five weeks, before murdering him and dumping his body in the Adelaide Hills. Seriously. Fucked. Up.




The newsreader is still on air: he's like the Peter Hitchener of Adelaide. But he is discreetly put on leave every time Von Einem story bobs to the surface, to save him reading headlines about the man who no doubt ruined his life.

So Von Einem is back in the news after being caught with a stack of descriptive stories he'd written about young kids for his own gratification. It has caused an almighty stir: understandably anything to do with this man sets a ripple of unrest through the community. But it is still to be argued that hand written sheets of paper count as child porn.

Another big case featured almost daily is the Stuart McDonald trial. McDonald alledgedly infected 12 Adelaide men with HIV in a a string of gaydar internet hook up's. According to police, he knowingly infected the men and his extreme narcissism means he has no remource for his actions.

Whether this is guilty or not doesnt really diminish the fact that what we have here is a good old fashioned witch hunt, and the story sells papers. Lots of them.

There is only one photo of McDonald in existance, theres no choice but to run it. It's seared onto my memory.





Thats the trouble. Sometimes, you just don't want to know. Maybe thats why journalists have the whole a hard nosed, boozing, cynical reputation. It's all you can do but sigh, or shrug, or laugh - then move on to another Paris Hilton story.

For a city with a relatively modest population, Adelaide certainly has its share of the macabre. Apparently Salman Rushdie came to research a book here years ago, and said it had the strangest energy of any city he had ever been to.

Some think its the Aboriginal spirits still turbulating ancient unrest. Others reckon Australias baddest crims usually escape to the bleak wilds of northern South Australia to evade capture - making Adelaide the closest metro to prey upon.

In any case, an awful lot of random shit goes on in Adelaide.

Now I need to have a shower.

The D List

Look at this website!

It'll make your day.

www.dlisted.com

Seriously bitchy. Celeb trashing. Damn hilarious.

For people who take perverse schadenfreud in watching Britney Spears crumble into a cautionary tale.

Annie and the Gap

This is my best mate Anna.



She is currently jaunting around the world, living in London and living it up.



>> she has something of a sunglasses fetish <<


I miss her like an amputated limb right now!

She is pure, unadulterated, unalloyed, untouched gold.

Right before she left, a group of us went to Halls Gap, near the Grampians for New Years Eve.



Check out the shotgun smiles!

It was more fun that really should be allowed... Everyone seemed to click, and we lazed around, ate food, drank wine, smoked cigarettes and cavorted in some hilarious costumes.




>> scott + me <<




>> charlotte + pleasure suit <<

And hats...



>> joseph <<



>> jules <<

I sortof get a strange melancholy looking at the photos...something behind the sternum.

It was a flash, just two days, then over. But I hope I can cobble together the memory when Im toothless and senile.

And I hope I can still call Anna and say:

'Remember that NYE we all got carpet burn from re-enacting Kylie Minogue's 'Slow' video clip at that house in the Grampians?'

Knees 'O Fury

Let me show you 'round a bit!

This is a little alleyway I walk down on my way to work:




And this is a particularly eye catching vehicle I spotted beside the road.




Beats a bumper sticker.


And this is the dashing window display of a newsagent. Love the Bee-boy.




(The headline is vintage 'Tiser)


Bloody pissed off I missed this:





Meet Bec and Geoff...



They took me 'round town on Sunday night to drink my weight in Coopers and listen to cracking 90's music at a pub called the Crown and Sceptre.

90's music like:



This song, which was actually the VERY FIRST CD I EVER OWNED. A single. Christmas '91. Given in conjunction with a giant tub of 300 gumballs called 'Bloodsuckers', which made the chewer look as if he/she had been drinking red paint all afternoon.

Picture me, aged nine, frothing fake blood on the carpet, whiplashing my head 'round to this little tune!!

'I got the ke-ey. I got the sec-re-ee-eet. I got the key to a-nother way!'

Cred.

Here's a closer look of the wall in the background up there:




The photo was taken at 2am, in a strip lit Kebab store on Rundle St. It's a fine establishment, of age-old traditions. One of which is take a snap of their customers and slap it on the wall above the deep frier.

If youve ever got drunk and come a cropper with some bad food in SA, you'll know its not a Kebab at all. Its a Yeeros.

South Aussies would whither at you if you didnt say Yeeros when describing a pancake of bread piled with congealed meat, white onion rings and toxic garlic sauce. It's not a Souva. Not a 'Bab. Not a Giros. It's a Yeeeeeeeeeeeros.

They also call telegraph poles 'stobie' polls.

A schooner is a pot, and a pint is a schooner.

And its definately dar-nce, not daiy-nce. Same deal for chance. Prance. Stance. France.

Nutters.

But they do a good gastropub.

Like this one, the Victory. Looks like a tin shed. Youd probably drive straight past it. But it is OFFICIALLY the home of the best. THE BEST. Chick Shnit Parma. Of all time. From someone who KNOWS.

Nice view, too.