Whoo, I haven't been to OC Remix for a while. For those who don't know, they're a bunch of composers who do arrangements of videogame music. They're well selected and judged, so it's rare that anything lame slips through, and it's great to hear what modern technology and a different context can do to classic songs in gaming.

At the moment I'm digging synth and electro, so hearing the Pokemon series being given a happy synth medley (look at my listening to: field) is like cocaine without the itchy nose.

Otherwise, making for a cinematic trifecta this week, I saw Up 3D with the spotcat on Thursday afternoon. It was great! Using a simple melody in varying arrangements throughout the film made it feel like a delightful little opera.

Sure, the concept of a man flying his house to South America with helium balloons seems childish, but the fact he's doing it after losing the love of his life, whilst confronting the hero of his childhood and finding release for his bottled-up paternal instincts makes for good viewing. It's well animated with lots of sillinesses, like the villain's dogs (able to talk due to specials collars) and the insane female bird named Kevin, to lighten the mood and keep things fresh.

Like any good family film it tells a mature story in a way that doesn't exclude anyone, very groovy.

Ah well, yay for lazy Sundays, peace out!

Whee, spent my weekend down in the 'Gong, where the weather was mostly well behaved except for massive bursts of wind and some unseasonable humidity. Hung out with a spotcat, ate too much (though it was good, so it's worth it) and saw District 9.

Mostly reliant on a pseudo-documentary format, it tells the story of how humanity reacts to the sudden arrival of alien refugees, using South Africa as the perfect setting (can you say xenophobic segregation? there, I knew you could!)

It also follows one man who's been exposed to a mysterious liquid that some of the aliens have been gathering, and the scientific and financial prize he becomes afterwards. Look out for robotic battle suits, detailed alien designs, dark looks at man's ugly side and some of the most Seth Efrican accents you've heard in a while.

Bonjerno! *intentional mispelling*

Just watched Inglorious Basterds. Fantastic! Quentin Tarantino is a strange, strange man, and watching his films is vaguely like watching him masturbate to how eccentric and stylish his films are; but when he gets it right, it's a wonderful way to spend a few hours.  

Portraying an elaborate ruse to bring down the Nazi High Command in WW2, Inglorious Basterds plays it hard and loose with history and believability, and in true Tarantino style is redeemed fully by wonderful dialogue, good casting and a soundtrack I could bottle and drink until I pass out.

Brad Pitt makes for a wonderful hero, his newly found sense of eccentricity making him perfect for the role of an oh-so-Southern boy out killing 'Nattzees' in pastoral France. Hearing him butcher the English language is a real treat, though his butchering of enemy soldiers is given sufficient levity.

Melanie Laurent's a good heroine, she's not physically flawless, which makes her that much more beautiful when in a smoky haze and bedecked in a red dress. There's enough little rays of sunshine through a bleak exterior to make her more deep than just another wounded woman, though she'd deserve that title after being the only survivor of a Nazi raid.

But my favourite role, character, actor and bit of man candy is Christoph Waltz as the droll and somewhat camp SS commander Hans Landa. Always affable, devious and several steps ahead, his role's the type that baffles a viewer with its rapid switches between delightful and deplorable. His style's like an arguably superior European interpretation of the method Heath Ledger employed to imbue his Joker in the Dark Knight with such grim appeal.

The colour is rich, the mood split between war, noir and western, the soundtracks juicy and full of classic charm, and there's no discrediting the ability of aforementioned director's ability to make a simple drinking game the most tense scene in recent movie history.

Like any of Tarantino's films, it will offend some (and probably more than other films he's made, judging by the subject matter), but it's everything that makes him likable done about as well as he's ever done it.

Inglorious Basterds, drink it down, all the way down!

Hooray for new character pics, the face of which is seen as my new avatar, and for people aging!

This weekend marked the celebration of aussiehusky's birthday, with dinner at a nice Indian place in Chatswood, nibbles at his place and Harry Potter the next day. Thanks to him for both aging and for hosting an enjoyable evening, and to the as always enjoyable attendees (you know who you are!)

Harry Potter was good, but suffered from too much to show in too much/too little time (2.5 hrs is long for a movie, but short for the material) and often felt confusing or rushed.

Hooray for Temba being back from the US, glad to hear he didn't get mugged or eaten by roving hordes of wild unemployed stock traders. Good to see him and catch up, now for the vast crime spree we've been meaning to get around to!

Check out a musician by the name of La Roux who's doing the rounds on Youtube and in the UK at the moment, she's like David Bowie's love child, who got into a car crash with heavy 80s synth and modern production values. Very nice.

Anyway, off to rest I go, best to all of you and take care! 

Just finished watching the titular movie, starring Marillon Cotillard as the tragic but wonderful French singer of the mid 1900s, who weathered poverty, abuse, drug addiction and the loss of her lover in a plane crash. Both her music and her story were passionate and bittersweet. Told with a good sense of humour that barely manages to shine out through the pain of her life and the grim world she grew up in.


If you don't mind sad tales and find the subject matter/period interesting, you should watch it. Now if you'll pardon me I have something in my eye...

Remember how I said that Cowboy Bebop was the kind of visual media that should be borne by vestal virgins, wreathed in lillies and adored by all?

Well, just so you kids don't think I'm all hugs and cuddles for Japanese film and TV, let's review a live-action film by Yoshihiro Nishimura. This film goes by the name of Tokyo Gore Police (TGP), starring Japanese horror-film star Shiina Eihi as sword-weilding heroine(?) Ruka, which portrays Tokyo in the future as being a bleak and violence-obsessed hellhole in which crime is so costly to the government that the police force has been privatised.

Ruka plays the orphaned daughter of the last of the real police officers, who now must fight mysterious genetically engineered super-mutant criminals that plague Japan, amidst a society growing less and less concerned with sexual and physical excess. From depictions of remote controlled execution devices for grieving families, to cute and stylish wrist-cutting blades for teenagers, TGP's Tokyo is a nightmare vision of modern isolation and misanthropy reaching its not-so-logical extreme.

To get the easy stuff out of the way, TGP's soundtrack is passable, mixing Japanese heavy metal and traditional folk tunes with some rather disturbing little bits of pop. It works for the most part, though sometimes one wishes they could get away for a moment to catch their breath from all the distortion.

Cinematograpy is nothing of note, though there's a tendency to linger on scenes too long, as well as focus too much on props/special effects that can't really stand up to too much scrutiny. Prop design and costuming is done well for the most part, though occasionally the gore and blood effects (of which there are many) look rushed and poorly planned.

Okay, we got that out of the way? Here's what's notable about TGP. It's fucked up, off the chain, 120% batshit crazy, sucking cocks in hell, the work of the devil offensive. From giant pirahna vagina monsters, penises that can fire bullets, amputee gimps with swords for limbs, acidic projectile breast milk and mass murder and rape, TGP sets out to break every taboo. Whether guilty or innocent, TGP will kill them and kill them sadistically, kids and women aren't spared, racism rears its ugly head and every attempt is made to find new ways to disgust the viewer.

A scene in which mass urination and hideous body modification comes to mind as the symbol of what TGP stands for. It's either a witty way of portraying and getting at the culture who watches movies like it, or a base and perverted celebration of it. Either way, a strong stomach and an even stronger suspension of disbelief is necessary to watch it.

My verdict? If you don't vomit or become lobotomised by it, you'll probably finish the film laughing like I did, but for the most part it's the dripping, ichorous creature that exists on the opposing plane to things like Cowboy Bebop. It's everything bad about Japan and horror movies, and my only reason to recommend it is on the grounds that if something's going to rape you in your life, it might as well be a movie.

Peace out!

AKA How I learned to love the atomic man.

Aloha hoi furs and murrs, Jay Feezy here to give you the lowdown and nasty on the new film inspired by the DC Comics graphic novel Watchmen.

Set in a 1985 in which superheroes were a massive contributing factor to America's peace and stability, in which the USA resoundingly crushed enemies in Vietnam and in which Richard Nixon kept getting re-elected, Watchmen looks at the role of the superhero when society has determined that they are naught but over-dressed vigilantes.

Starting with the murder of one of the 'old guard', a plot that will derail notions of superhero morality and good taste follows. From the constant full frontal male nudity, to a rather unpleasant scene that reminds us that super strength has some pretty base uses in the bedroom (or the pool room in this case) Watchmen dares to be faithful to its source material and to the notion that black and white morality is a greater sin than shades of grey.

Not that it's all doom and gloom, there's certainly a sick sense of humour that pervades throughout the film, from a reminder that stilettos aren't appropriate attire for combat, to the fact that people of different races tend only to get together when they're about to get blown up.

It's choreographed well, without the flashy and epileptic editing that festers within most movies featuring hand to hand combat; and special effects mostly suit the occasion, the only truly super-powered superhero being a testament to good motion capture and attention to detail.

Setting and music are both well honed, that spirit of the 1940s to 1980s, the fear of the red menace, and all the sounds that made those times what they were are used to great effect. Though hearing 'Unforgettable' accompany the brutal beating and murder of a man is somewhat jarring, it definitely works.

I don't want to be a fanboy (even though I am, it was fan-fucking-tastic) so I'll just say that I was impressed, while the neding was changed slightly from that of it's originator, it was still daring and would have still scared the pants out of studios. "You want how much cock?" "You want how many people to die?" "You wanna do what to who!?"

Watch the Watchmen, it's a visceral, gritty and amoral tale of man's foibles and sickly need to make villains and heroes out of normal people. 

For those of you who haven't heard, Boxing Helena was a US-made film, released in 1993 and directed/written by Jennifer Lynch. If you're thinking that name's familiar, you'd be right, as Jenny is daughter to none other than David Lynch. David's responsible for such notable (and mind-screwing films) as Eraserhead, Dune and Mulholland Drive.

As kids tend to rebel against their parents, you'd assume that if Jenny got into filmmaking, her fare would have been dull and vacuous romantic comedies starring Ben Stiller and washed up TV comedy actresses.

If that's the case, you assumed wrong bitch!

Boxing Helena relates the tender love affair between a doctor (Julian Sands) and a woman (Sherilyn Fenn) who spurned him (wait, it's really not a romantic comedy), in which the doctor finds the woman has been run over in front of his home in Atlanta. Like any good doctor, he aids in the titular character's recovery... by amputating her legs, then her arms (which were fine!) and then keeping her in a box.

That's right, someone seriously thought that they could sell a film like this to mainstream audiences! Ms Lynch even tried to get Madonna and Kim Basinger on as Helena at first (in fact, Kim's decision to break her contract for the film and the ensuing lawsuit was a big contributor to her humiliating bankruptcy). As a guide to how the film went, it won Jennifer the Razzie award for worst director, and made about enough money to buy a house in Sydney. Maybe. Out west...

Now, aside from motivating me from trying to find the film on DVD (good luck eh?), it did make me wonder how you sell such a concept...

"Helena Summers thought she had enough trouble raising her two kids and putting dinner on the table. She didn't know how good she had it till she lost her limbs! That's right kids, it's everyones favourite actress Lindsay Lohan, and she's definitely... stumped!"

Yeah... thank atpaw for the idea of posting that. I'm pretty sure I'm going to hell.

Wheee! Got sick! But got better! There's nothing like delirium to remind you that hallucinogens aren't necessary to see things! I don't usually get sick, I think it was tonsillitis or something, judging by the fleshy golf balls in my mouth. No... don't even say it!

Further education is to commence soon, as soon as I supply the tutors with enough salmon to make up for low funds... should be easy!

On another note, I recently watched "Bolt", the lead characters' animation was well done and Bolt himself was adorable. The parody of action films and of the rift between popular media and reality was good, but Disney's involvement made for a slightly confusing message and childish  tones. If a gun's put to my head, I'll give it a 3 or 3.5 if in a good mood.

Otherwise I watched an anime film by the name of "Millennium Actress" by Satoshi Kon, a director behind films such as "Tokyo Godfathers" and "Paprika", which uses the life of a fictional actress growing up in Japan during the second world war as a means of telling both her love story and the evolution of Japanese film and history. It messes with perception quite a bit, and draws on the prodigious musical talents of Susumu Hirasawa (trance/classical inspired musician known for his eccentricity and epic career).

Aside from these themes, MA also explores how audiences get wrapped up in film and end up integrating themselves into the experience, making for a rather surreal bit of viewing. It also means that if you have a heart you should be at least a little teary at the end. Four out of five!

I recommend both movies, and some salmon if you can find it. It's better than tuna anyday!

Peace out and take care! 

I just finished watching V for Vendetta, a film starring Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, that portrays the exploits of a masked vigilante seeking to bring down a government responsible for the suppression of all free speech and civil rights in the UK, as well as the willfull murder by biological means of over a hundred thousand of it's own citizens.

Using a mix of sexy Wachowski-brothers directed action and witty but somewhat scattered dialogue, the film uses Natalie Portman, everyday girl at a government-attached TV station forced into spending time V the vigilante/terrorist/freedom fighter, as a symbol of the everyman. How would YOU respond when asked to risk your personal safety and stability to strike a blow against dictators and for the common man?

Hugo Weaving makes the brave decision to remain a faceless character in the form of the titular V, with a voice and expression behind the Guy Fawkes mask better than most actors baring their skin, and Natalie dutifully plays the cyhper as well as being an attractive and amorphous figure in and of herself. Extra points to  John Hurt playing Big Brother-esque Chancellor Adam Sutler, and the uber sympathetic Stephen Rea as the man prepared to ignore 'the job' as an inspector to see the bigger crimes of his government brough to account.

The philosophy and morals in the film are a little obtuse at times, with V being capable of murder and torture as readily as his enemy, but in a way it works to show a modern world in which good and bad are luxuries amidst a sea of violent grey.

Oh, and the London Parliament building gets blown up in time with the William Tell Overture. Instant win!

Peace out furs and murrs!

Yo biatches, niggaz and home slices, this be J-Fizzle bringin' you the latest in all that's Fear and queer!

This weekend was spent down in the 'Gong with none other than Atpizzle (AKA atpaw ), the spotcat of speed, and was comprised of munchies, movies and motorbiking. The munchies were from Crazy Noodle, the prices were ice and the noodles were nice, and then out at Fujiyaka Teppanyaki, the chef was off the chain, flippin' and whippin' tasty food (most of which I failed to catch) and it was cheaper and more enjoyable than my previous teppanyaki experience. Respect!

One of the movies was Hot Fuzz on DVD (a lesson in the Chekov's Gun rule, if you see it at the start, you'll see it at the end; as well as being comprised half of silliness and cheesy characterisation) made by the peeps who brought us the parodical bizzomb Shawn of the Dead!  

We caught Burn After Reading on the big screen, with Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, George Clooney and John Malkovich starring, it was a dark and twisted piece of humour from the Coen boys, they be keepin' it real as ever! Look out for the twist midway that makes it somehow darker AND funnier!

The biking was more the spotcat's thing, while I held onto the bike and tried to keep low. It was a charity convoy for Camp Quality, it was pretty cool, lots of people giving props to the riders, and there was much waving and love between all. Strange to see all those positive vibes from and for a segment of the community that's always bein' dissed.

Otherwise, I just finished Fallout 3! Apparently I'm evil. Really evil. So much so I was given a lecture on it by the game. Mad skills on my part.

Oh well homeboys and girls, I be off, I have caps to bust or some such. Peace out!

Studio Ghibli. That name makes one think of the whimsy of 'My Neighbour Tottoro', the wide-eyed wonder of 'Kiki's Delivery Service', and the triumpant 'Nausicaa and the Valley of the Winds'.

A Japanese animation studio founded in 1985, Ghibli's high-class animation, soundtracks and complex but accessible themes (often evironmental, pacifistic and noble) have made them the arguable pinnacle of anime. Their works are often seen as light, uplifting, poetic... as well as being youthful but adult in their intellect.

( It is oddly pleasing then that their 1988 anime 'Grave of the Fireflies', is one of the most heartbreaking pieces of film I have ever seen. Read on for a review... )

Aloha hoi to all of you out there in internet land. During a weekend spent in Wollongong with a certain fiendish cat, I saw a film by the name of Tropic Thunder.

It is imperative that you see this film.

It is not a work of art, but it's certainly amusing. It parodies war films, Hollywood and the actors it both features and portrays.

Ben Stiller plays an action film star who's long gone the way of Steven Segal, Jack Black plays a coke-addicted college comedy actor and Robert Downey Jr plays an eccentric Australia actor... who plays a hammy/over-the-top African American soldier...

It's all hammy and over the top really; from a disturbing scene involving a severed head, to the pre-teen Laotian drug lord, to the hip-hop dance scenes starring none other than Tom Cruise. Jack Black's lameness and a few convenient deus ex machina notwithstanding, it was well worth it.

I shall remember it fondly for its spoofed movie trailers, hyperbolic script, and the best thing Robert Downey Jr has ever said.

"I'm a motherfucking lead farmer!"

Hi there, Jay here, with another odd way to word what are otherwise mundane events. This is indeed a parody :P

Blood-soaked streaks of light greeted me on Saturday, the festering wound of work ached at me until I hauled my corpse from the slab. It was an uneventful and hollow journey, and my only reward was a dead calm, the reign of the hellspawn on school holidays preventing their parents coming to my place of work. As I pondered fiendish plans for the evening, Elricia, the fetid she-bitch of Irony, lead the Catholics past my store, in a hopeless rendition of the stations of the cross for their fallen and useless God.

After that grim shift I set forth to rejuvenate my battered flesh in Balmain, before striking out once more to view the moving chromagraph with my fellow furred demons dustandfox and Lupie. In that pit of corruption and vile deceit known as Newtown, oh how I love it so, we viewed a Japanese animated film by the name of "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time".

Though the Newtown Dendy itself is a malevolent and decrepit place, one in which the sound system had partly failed during the screening, the film was quite good. Looking at the cold and monstrous artifice known as time, and those hopeless actions known as choices, it followed a girl who sought to improve her life by leaping back and forward through time. As all lessons must be learnt, it took a lot of pain and suffering before she decided that the best way to avoid regrets is to look forward and be responsible. Oh what folly, as we know when Shelzageth emerges from the raging void that all life shall be unmade, so thinking of the future is an excercise in futility.

As we emerged from the somewhat long film, the demons and I made our way to master_flea's birthday party. The food and company were a hedonistic delight. After some unpleasantness that occurred later in the evening I can only hope the host finds joy in the bitter pill that is life once more soon enough.

After a brief crash at illdrinn's den of sin I and the demons made our way to roost at their ebony spire of hate, which is still scarred by the gods' fearful wrath, mainly in the form of large craters and sewerage piles in their backyard.

This interlude comprised the interesting portion of my weekend, after which I have been a recluse in my box of machiavellian tortures and sadistic delights. Writing, mundane tasks and succour at the teat of the universal fear engine have sustained me. Though the lack of activity is somewhat disappointing, the stupour that Saturday left me prevented me from doing much.

May Shelzageth enshroud you all in her decomposing wings, until she tears us all in twain!

Also known as "Fine, I'll have my own RivFur, with flapjacks and hookers! Actually, forget the Rivfur and the flapjacks!"

I'm not actually regretting staying back here in NSW during Rivfur, I'm trying to be well behaved with my money and I know an interstate furmeet would be too conducive to reckless spending.

I've been keeping busy though, on Friday night I hung out with a few infamous canines here in Balmain, there was much wine and much evil done. On a whim (and certainly not to procure more supplies) we went to Circular Quay to see Lupie's latest project. For anyone who doesn't know he's a draftsman/industrial designer for films and ads, and his latest work was on display there. I believe it's moved on now, which is a shame, it was quite impressive.

Saturday was mostly a vague drift through time and space, I walked more than I have in quite a while, wrote a sinful furry story and watched Starship Troopers. It was well produced, with intentionally tacky acting and uber-cheesy design. It was a good portrayal of the author's vision, though it lacked warmth. Funny though, very funny.

After Starship Troopers I played Team Fortress 2. It's funny, I've had it for months but barely given it a second glance. Then I stayed up til 4:30am this morning playing it. Here are my thoughts on the classes I like...

• Spy - The epitome of stealthy bastardry, requiring great finesse and the gaming equivalent of a poker face. Fun, but I lack the prerequisite face and finesse. Stabbing someone in the back is reward enough for any other failings.

• Scout - SPEED! Double jumping, dashing, the zippy little pistol... THE BASEBALL BAT! Very fun, though his weapons definitely lack in brute force... 'cept for the baseball bat. There's nothing more satisfying than knowing you're solely responsible for catching a point using the acrobatics and speed of the scout. Oh, and did I mention the baseball bat?

• Sniper - Probably the class I'm best with so far, this gruff, British sociopath seems to speak to some dark part of me. The dark part that sees the bastard Heavy who has just come out of Ubercharge and wasn't expecting to be a corpse so soon afterwards, and then laughs as he falls over with a "omgwtfbbq".  So obviously the sniper rifle is what it's all about, the sub machine gun's nice but weak, and frankly no Sniper should be needing the kukri knife.

Playing so late lead me to start distrusting my own judgement, such as when I could swear I was listening to an Indian man threatening to tell younger players' mothers if they kept swearing via voice chat. Especially after I'd gone to another server to watch some Pyros blowing each other up to see how far they could fly. When someone started pumping Queen through their microphone I decided to go before I was on the other side of the looking glass.

Oh, and today I was putting together a portfolio for a job interview, freaking out over where I could get photocopies done of important documents. Then I found a folder full of organised copies that I'd made ages ago. Thanks me!

Anyway, I hope all is well for everyone, take care!

In my aforementioned post I discussed my weekend and did a small review of the delicious B-grade film "Death Race 2000". It was like falling asleep in the gutter to find you've woken up in a bubble bath, a pleasant surprise in what is packaged like detritus. It was an amazingly tight dystopia piece with my favourite hammy actors and a cynical edge you could cut steel with.

I failed to mention that I saw another movie that weekend, one much more recent and well funded.

Speed Racer! It stars Emile Hirsch as the titular lead, a bright and eager young man with nothing but motor racing and his girlfriend Trixie (played by Christina Ricci) on his mind. There is the slight problem of his brother's lapse into crime and then his sudden death in the middle of a non-regulated race... but nothing can break Speed Racer's plastic-fantastic facade as he competes in a series of races to fight corporate corruption, assert the strength of an individual over "The Man" and get over his angst.

The movie and the main character have as much depth as a chat with Steven Segal, but unlike Mr Segal there's some saving graces that rescue Speed Racer from tedium.

Directed by the Wachowski brothers (responsible for the Matrix trilogy) Speed is a hectic affair, bright, colourful and slathered with odd cinematic techniques and computer generated effects to produce something that conjure up memories of the frame-deprived affair that was the anime the film is based on.

When the actors are living up to their job descriptions (John Goodman was almost a dead certainty for the role of Pops, Susan Sarandon is a little empty as Speed's mother) these odd visual effects mainly find their place in framing emotion in cute ways. A flashback to Speed's youth in which he meets Trixie utilises a filter to make the background merge into technicolour hearts, cheesy, but so well done and sneaky that you can't help but enjoy it. The transitions between media coverage and action are done as well as can be hoped, the sweeping talking heads another nod to the anime.

On the race track (and relying on a surreal future as the setting) racers speed down looping and chaotic metallic raceways in the sky, protected from death (usually) by a bubbledome that forms around them in the event of vehicular destruction. Sparks fly, colours blur and shapes bend with the motion of it all, so much so that I've encountered claims of motion sickness in response to these sequences.

I have a stronger constitution than most in that regard, but found myself challenged by the utter ham fistedness of some of the story elements. I'm aware of the plotline of the anime, but a decent bit of subtlety in some of the revelations regarding some characters would have been appreciated.

Also, the villain Arnold Royalton (played by a very schlocky Roger Allam) was so cardboard-cutout evil I thought he might as well have had a cat to stroke as well as a moustache to twist. Racer X (Matthew Fox), despite his secret and a nifty leather suit, was a little too contrary and aloof to make much of an impact. And while I'm hammering away, the Japanese business family involved in the film's events barely made a dent despite being pivotal to the plot.

However, the true JOPI (Jay's Order of Pointless Individuals) goes to Paulie Litt, the young boy who played Speed's younger brother Spritle. Assisted by an irritating chimp, he serves as the lowest common denominator, with groin punching, toilet humour and the usual supposedly charming mischief that defines the under-10 precocious male perfectly. I sincerely hope that Litt is given more mercy by subsequent employers then he gave to his performance of a creature more twisted then the film's villains.

Special mention must be made of the final race sequence however, in which a few intelligent bits of scripting and visual design helped to tell a good deal of the story, as well as being quite exciting. As the race nears its end there's a cascading and escalating sequence of dodges, hits and movements that lead to what can only be described as a mechanical orgasm. The intense rush of light and colour, accompanied by a choral crescendo, feels like the reverse of the Wachowski brothers' primal scream effect used in the Matrix to depict Neo's passage into reality.

Overall, it was a bright and colourful affair, but left little in the way of enlightenment or wit. Imagine falling asleep in the aforementioned bubble bath, and waking to find it cold and dim. Watch it if you want a quick laugh and some eye candy, just don't expect anything beyond what melts in your mouth.

Hey there friends and foes alike, it's your favourite urvulpine here with a quick note about what he's been upto as of late.

This weekend, aside from a lovely shift at work on Saturday and a quick inspection of the new place (big and friendly, though possessed of that suburban eccentricity you find in the European influenced suburbs), was comprised of my going down to Wollongong to catch up with friends. Namely, Atpaw and Weasely!

With the formidable 'Gongians I set out to Hog's Breath cafe, home to the species Boganis Generica, for the first time. It was an experience, welfare mothers howling at misbehaved children, loud and overdressed women who couldn't decide if they wanted to be sow's ears or silk purses and no shortage of men who I imagined leaving the establishment in one-ton utes.

My normal urge to review places of mass consumption was squashed by the realisation it was a chain and that I had somehow missed this piece of commonly held knowledge. The service was fine, the venue was loud (which may have lead to Atpaw's order being incorrectly heard, as they gave him a standard cut of meat when he asked for the large one, though they did compensate him for the difference in price) and the food was simple but alright. Far be it from me to argue with giant steaks.

Later that night I watched a delightful B-grade movie with Atpaw by the name of Death Race 2000, a fantastic bit of dystopian vehicular campness. Starring David Carradine it imagines a future in which the US principles of free enterprise and self reliance have evolved into a country wide car race in which contestants compete to hit as many pedestrians as possible while racing from the east coast to the west. It may be where the "100 points if you hit an old lady" joke came from! DR2000 casts a gleeful but disparaging eye over the soullessness of modern entertainment, the free market's generation of a "survival of the fittest" society and of course has both David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone which equals instant cool.

Otherwise my weekend was mostly geekery, pizza and expensive/high quality alcohol, much fun was had and many calories were consumed. Now, I think I've got the flu and the week ahead will be busy.

Anyway, take care, see you on the other side of the veil, and peace out!

I knew I'd find you here! Guees what?

I went to a furry dinner/movie event last night (though only 4, Wolven, Enigma, Aussie and myself ended showing up after a flood of cancellations) which was rather nice (thanks to Aussie for the idea). Went to a Japanese restaurant in Broadway that overcharges for its sake, but does nice tonkotsu (pork bone) soup so I'll forgive them.

The movie was Superhero Movie, made by the delightul fellows who made Scary Movie 1-4, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans etc etc, and it was garbage. Amusing garbage though, much like teenage masturbation its something you think is awful and base and oh I could sneak a few minutes in before anyone gets back I'm sure...

Acting was hammy and bland though Ryan Hansen makes an entertaining super villain, and Leslie Nielsen is funny even when he's not trying (or trying too hard as is the case here).

Special effects were lame and I pray to god they wanted people to notice it, because there were some tiny little gaffes in the structure of sets and lighting effects that were just off, and I'm hoping they were parodying old Batman episodes because otherwise someone needs to get their position reevaluated.

The plot was generic though Hourglass is an interesting villain concept, one I'm half-tempted to believe was "borrowed" from less popular material. It does the required parodies of Spiderman, Batman Begins, X-Men and the Fantastic Four while mixing in culturally relevant or *shudder* hip technological referances such as YouTube, Facebook and blogging.

Its better than some of the work put out by its creators as of late but that's hardly saying much. If you're inclined towards seeing it I recommend a DVD and a bunch of friends, its mindless, guilty fun that I'd give 2 stars.

Oh, and the music I have listed as what I'm listening to at the moment is by a friend of mine in the fur community by the name of Alex Coe, he's solid, as a friend and musician. He does solid dirty house tracks, good dance stuff, unique, though I don't think he's distributing yet.

See 'yall on the flipside!