Christmas Telly Highlights 2012

No, Virginia, The He Man and She-Ra 

Christmas Special (1985) is not on this year

Hail Zeitgeisters,

Obviously today is a day for family etc. what would you be doing watching the telly, eh?  However if you do wish to cast your eye over what’s on the free-to-air digital, you’ll find slim pickings. We’ve had a quick look and chosen some highlights also some “highlights” This selection is based on the Perth guide which will be similar to the guide in many capital cities, but there may be some regional differences.


NATIVITY (2010)
9.16 AM-11.00 AM (ABC 1)

Mr Maddens, a primary school teacher, is charged with producing the school's nativity play and competing against the posh rival school for the honour of 'best show in town'.

Martin Freeman from THE OFFICE (UK) is the lead in what is a well-regarded family movie according to many on-line, although I thought this was awful when I saw it on Christmas Eve. Suss it out yourselves though when it is repeated today. For people who like to see little kids being cute and occasionally breaking into song and dance–or rather breaking into song and dance at the drop of a sequined hat–this will be very much Your Kind Of Thing. Ashley Jensen from EXTRAS and UGLY BETTY also appears. They’ve made a NATIVITY 2, by the way.


THE LOVE BOAT (1982)
11AM-12PM (ELEVEN)

The madcap antics aboard the Pacific Princess take on a yuletide flavour on this episode cleverly named The Christmas Presence.  An angelic man (Mickey Rooney) becomes involved with a sick little boy, a couple (Maureen McCormick, Donny Osmond) and a pair of nuns. Marsha from The Brady Bunch plays a woman married to Donny Osmond–excitement!  Pop worlds colliding!


IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)
1.00PM-3.08PM (ABC1)

James Stewart stars as a man who learns the value of friendship when, in a desperate moment, he wishes he had never been born.  Frank Capra’s classic movie has been remade a number of times (once with Marlo Thomas in the Stewart role!) but has never been bettered. If you’ve never seen it before it’s in black and white, kids. But don’t let that put you off, settle back and give it a chance.


POPASIA (2012)
1.00PM-3.00PM (SBS 1)

If a monochromatic Jimmy Stewart simply isn’t your cup of nog, then maybe two hours of brightly coloured boy bands, girl groups, Asian-English lyrics and lots and lots and lots of dancing may be what you’re looking for. It's the wave of the future folks. BLADE RUNNER had it right! Soylent Green is People! (No, scratch that...)


ANDRE RIEU: HOME FOR CHRISTMAS (2012)
3.32PM-5.02PM  (GEM)

You are invited to enjoy the most beautiful Christmas melodies together with Andre Rieu and his Johann Strauss Orchestra. A magical spectacular performed at Andre Rieu's fabled castle in Maastricht, The Netherlands. Watch and feel the cross promotion, I mean, Christmas emotion.


JIMMY LITTLE TRIBUTE CONCERT (2012)
7.30PM-9.00PM (NITV)

To celebrate Jimmy Little's life Australian musicians from around the country will gather and sing. Family and friends will come together to honour the contribution of this extraordinary Australian. The story also includes interviews with Paul Kelly, Christine Anu, Dan Sultan, Col Hardy, Don Walker and many others. The concert first screened after Jimmy Little's State Memorial service in Sydeny in May.


MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR REVISITED (2012)
7.30PM-8.40PM (SBS 1)

This documentary lifts the lid on The Beatles most "controversial" work through never-before-seen footage, exclusive outtakes, and interviews with Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and others. That's the official logline, anyhoo. The film wasn't so much controversial as incoherent. Interesting note, The Beatles had a company called Apple before Apple MacIntosh ever existed and although this film is authorised by Apple Films it still manages to be an interesting look at an infuriatingly self-indulgent art film. Worth a watch.


BAD SANTA (2003)
9.29PM-11.30PM (GO!)

Conman Willie and his elf like "helper" work once a year near Christmas. The two pose as Santa Claus and an elf to rob department stores. Billy Bob Thornton, Lauren Grahame, John Ritter and Bernie Mac are great in this foul-mouthed, misanthropist movie that is filled with Christmas spirit but is none too pure.

Merry Christmas to ye all!
Mr Trivia

Wake Me Up Before You Vovo

The Iced Vovo brand was registered in 1906. According to the Wikipedia stub, it’s “a wheat flour biscuit topped with a strip of pink fondant either side of a strip of raspberry jam and sprinkled with coconut. It is a product of the American-owned Australian-based biscuit company Arnott's.

When I was a kid, before your fancy Melting Moments and Triple Choc Chip cookies became de rigeur; before we developed the American habit of buying cookie dough; before you could purchase a dozen huge, soft cookies for a couple of bucks at Coles, we had a thing called the biscuit.

Fancy biscuits were in short supply. You could always find a Nice or a Granita or a Milk Arrowroot. These were okay. They were the solid mainstay of the bikkie tin; the Chips Rafferty, the EH Holden, the rotary Hills Hoist of Australian biscuitry. Their ready availability was the result of your canny mother's foresight. She would supply the average ones and only bring out the good ones when absolutely necessary.

Cream biscuits were a luxury, although we only really liked the Hydrocream because it hinted at chocolate. This was the distant Australian cousin of the now dominant Oreo. Iced Vovos were not too common either. Despite their demure pink and coconut appearance, they were somehow "out there", flashing an ankle amongst the staid Victorianism of rectangular, dry, non-cream biscuits. I remember hearing of Tim Tams, but I knew they were for wealthy children whose parents drove vehicles with shiny chrome trim and automatic windows.

Recently, I began to fear that perhaps that Iced Vovos had disappeared from our Australian landscape. Perhaps the US-owned Arnott’s folks, didn’t see their retro magic, wouldn’t appreciate a biscuit that seemed about as a hip as a Toni Home Permanent. So I went on Facebook and asked some friends. I found their responses comforting. (Thanks for these FB pals!)

• Ha! My parents had a housewarming party the other day and they were there, if that helps
• I see them on the shelf of my local IGA all the time. I actually almost bought some the other day, but went for Triple Wafers instead.
• They sell these at the local IGA down the road it's hard to decide between these and fly cemeteries.
• I have never bought a packet of iced vovo's, but when I think of Australian biscuits, they're right behind Anzac bikkies. I can't remember the last time I ate any though..
• I don't think I ever ate them. Wasn't really my thing. Was more into assorted creams or tim tams. Sorry no help there! Just felt like commenting
• I tried them once. Took me an hour to pick all the coconut off so I didn't bother again.
• Important things about iced vovo's: the marshmallow bits used to be more round and puffy. Now they are deflated.
• I have never had one. Yes you heard me correctly. Never. This had caused a lifetime of feeling unfulfilled...

Cheered by this news, I transacted the purchase of a packet. I savoured the taste of history. I lingered over the flavour of the Wide Brown Land. I imagined gum trees, beaches, the songs of Jimmy Little, the Vice Regal smile of Quentin Bryce, the feel of the lid of a Willow Ware container popping open to reveal slices of beetroot. I had a vision of a long vanished nation where fruit slices were called fly cemeteries and vanilla slices were snot blocks. Every bite was as emotional as Peter Allen’s ballad Tenterfield Saddler or Karl Stefanovic the morning after the Logies.

Why nor buy an Iced Vovo today? Don’t remain unfulfilled a moment longer.

Note: The Arnott's company were not consulted in the writing of this blog post, however, I would be happy to receive free Vovos. Just putting it out there.

Let Us Tweet

Apparently Pope Benedict XVI has just got himself a Twitter account and he will begin tweeting on December 12th. Lapsed Twitterers are almost as numerous as lapsed Catholics, so the Pontiff will be on familiar ground. I've done the Twitter thing and I worry that within a week Pope Benedict will be reduced to commenting on the "awesome latte" he just had.

His Holiness will be known as @pontifex. If you're really interested in getting in on the social media wisdom of Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, then his people have thoughtfully arranged a hashtag #askpontifex for your convenience.  If you do a Twitter search to see how this is working out (and I recommend you do) you'll see the types of questions are either from those angry at the Church and who see Twitter as a forum for confrontation or from ironists like @Judes_Dickey who asked: "Is Theology the study of Malcolm-Jamal Warner's work on The Cosby Show? #askpontifex."

 Why not ask Benedict XVI as question? After all even Cricket Australia is doing it...

Mr Trivia

Feel The Music

I was cruising the Internets this morning looking for a pair of portable headphones. And I discovered a couple of things. Apparently a common Google question is, "Can I use my headphones for a microphone?" Apparently you can. You can also use pliers for a hammer and you can employ Microsoft Surface as a cutting board if you wish, but would you? 

I then looked for "May I use my headphones for a microphone?" and found nothing. The discourtesy of this younger generation continues to disturb.

The second thing I discovered was even more ephemeral, but you're reading Mr Trivia's Tract, not Mr Crucial's Manifesto and this kind of nonsense is why we are here. I saw a pair of clip-on 'over-ear' headphones and wondered if they were any better than the last time I tried them about ten years ago.

There followed the fairly nonsensical 3 am thought - I wonder if I can find a picture of someone using a pair of clip on headphones and looking as though they're enjoying the experience? Ridiculous. 

I Googled "Wearing Clip On Headphones" and got nothing useful. But I did note a strange pattern emerging on the first page of hits. There were many stock photos of women with headphones and they all seemed to suggest that enhancing the enjoyment of the private listening experience requires one to hold a hand, or even better both hands, to the speaker portion of the headphone. This gesture appears to indicate, "I am so into the music–or this Ira Glass podcast–that I have to physically touch the magic little sound shells from where the gods speaketh and singeth". 

Or maybe the guys down at Shutterstock.com (over 20 million stock photos, illustrations, vectors, and videos) where it turns out all the pictures come from, just have a fetish for ladies touching their headphones. I suspect we will never find out.

Mr Trivia

Palmed Off

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In the Man Booker prize winning LIFE OF PI (now made into a major motion picture by Ang Lee) there is a tiger in a lifeboat. The tiger is called Richard Parker. According to the Internets, in his book THE LIFE OF PI, author Yann Martel has the tiger misnamed Richard Parker as the result of a mix up. The hunter responsible for capturing the tiger is called Richard Parker. Sure, that may sound like sitcom nonsense to you and me, the sort of thing that might have happened on Gilligan’s Island, but it’s actually part of a Man Booker award-winning novel, dude, so it must be hell plausible and well written.

Anyway, I find the name of the tiger instantaneously annoying, Neither Richard nor Parker is a good tiger name and when said jointly, the irritation factor is extremely high. If the tiger is referred to as Richard Parker every time, then this conceit has the quality of a small child saying a phrase over and over, just for the sound of it, all meaning having been lost hours previously.

My gig is the restoration of meaning. It says so on my business card. So for a while I wanted to refer to the tiger as Richard Parker and the Rumour after musicians Graham Parker and the Rumour.  But it felt a little cumbersome. I have settled instead on another entertainer, the late Robert Palmer. Palmer was a popular English singer-songwriter who had chart success during the 1980s . He is probably best known in the zeitgeist for the mega-hit, and the accompanying music video, Addicted To Love. 

In future when I read passages from the book or about the film, I will mentally install the name Robert Palmer rather than Martel’s original handle. If a friend or acquaintance mentions the novel or the film, I will inform them of my actions, and ask that individual if they would like to join me in this act of substitution.

Doubtless, there are those who would argue against this suggestion and that is your right. However I like the idea that every time the tiger in the lifeboat is mentioned, those of us embarking on this important work, will now see and hear the presence of Mr Robert Palmer.  I look at this as a low key tribute to the man and his smooth pop-rock stylings. Consider joining me in this quest.

Elevate the Insignificant.

Phil

Bond Title Songs

I’ve just skimmed through the Bond movies in preparation for watching Bond 23 aka SKYFALL and in my humble, grumpy old man opinion, the title songs haven’t been much chop for a long time. I’m not referring to Monty Norman’s famous theme, nor am I talking about the movie soundtrack music created by the mighty John Barry or lately David Arnold.

I’m focussing on the new song that accompanies those famous title sequences that were substantially the creation of designer Maurice Binder until 1989’s LICENCE TO KILL. Despite the death of Binder, the Bond franchise continues to reference his pioneering work in the field of movie titles featuring naked women in silhouette, wielding guns.

I believe there hasn’t been a half-way decent title song since the 1980s, I find the recent attempts rather forgettable.  Jack White alleges he wrote a title song for QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008) and performed it with Alicia Keys, but even as it plays, it appears to Erase Itself From My Memory. I’ve heard the SKYFALL song written by Adele and Paul Epworth. It borrows from Connery-era Bond and is impressively adequate.

Here now is my completely arbitrary list of Favourite Bond Movie Title Themes.

Bond Title Song Top Three:

GOLDFINGER  (1964) Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley and John Barry penned a huge song that practically everybody knows. Given an appropriately big treatment by Welsh singer Shirley Bassey, it announces that three movies in, Bond has reached iconic status. And you can’t go past the line: “He’s the man, the man with the Midas touch. A spider’s touch.”

LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) It has been fashionable for years to have a go at Paul McCartney for being corporate, uncool and a purveyor of “granny music” as Lennon was supposed to have said at one point. But he created a bona fide hit with his epic theme song while also managing to sneak in a little reggae tribute. The 'Gunners' 1991 cover is not too shabby, either.

NOBODY DOES IT BETTER  (1977) Pure, expertly-crafted 1970s pop ballad corn from Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sayer and sung by Carly Simon. From an era when songs like You Light Up My Life (1977) and We May Never Love Like This Again (1974) dominated the Billboard Charts and became instant piano bar hits. Nobody Does It Better has everything you need to embarrass your partner at a home karaoke night.

Honorable Mentions:

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (1967) An usually lovely song for a Bond title, the lush violins will stick in your mind for days. Well-sung by Nancy Sinatra.  Robbie Williams even pinched a bit of this for his song Millennium. Apparently considered the best Bond theme song, by some, I had to mark it down because I can’t remember the Leslie Briceusse lyrics when I sing it in my car.

THUNDERBALL (1965) John Barry and Don Black were clearly looking for a repeat of the previous year’s Goldfinger. They even chose another Welsh belter to sing it by picking Tom Jones.  Jones gives his usual bravura performance, but lightning didn’t strike twice. Although Bond “Strikes like Thunderball” according to the punchiest line.

FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981) A big ballad sung by Sheena Easton. Written by Bill Conti and Michael Leeson. I have non-scientifically decided that MOONRAKER (1979) was the movie when the title song began its slow decline into feeble, tacked on, pointlessness. For Your Eyes Only was the best song of that era. (And yes, I am saying that era continues into the present. Leave me alone, I'm just a blogger!)

A VIEW TO A KILL (1985) by John Barry and Duran Duran and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (1987) by John Barry and A-Ha have a certain expensively-produced '80s pop drive to them.

And there you have it. Naturally, your list will differ. But the Internet is not about agreement. It’s about removing our ability to think. But that’s another story.

Cheers!

Mr Trivia

The Spice Must Flow

The other night I Facebooked and Tweeted: If you're channel switching on the free to air my Perthian FBB's, David Lynch's DUNE (1984) is on 9. "Muad'Dib!” Among the replies the following morning were some quotes:

“For he IS the Kwisatz Haderach!”
“The spice must flow.”
“His name is a killing word.”
“Walk widdout riddum, It won't attract the worm.”
“I see the truth of it...”

Also

“For once I regret my lack of an actual TV”
“Soooo much unnecessary voice over”

If you saw DUNE at the right time, somewhere around its release, or perhaps at the right time in your development as a fangirl, geekboy whatever, there is some chance you love this movie. Obviously, my filmhead friends and I have a great affection for it, but in many ways, it’s not an easy movie to love.

It’s probably best enjoyed by people who have read the Frank Herbert novel on which it is based. If you don’t know the book before you see the movie and if the movie itself doesn’t turn you off with its weird pacing and bizarre choices, then surely you will be driven to the source material in order to have the faintest idea what is going on.

According to the Wikipedia this is a précis of what is going on:

Dune is a 1965 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert,  Set in the far future amidst a feudal interstellar society in which noble houses, in control of individual planets, owe allegiance to the imperial House Corrino, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, the heir apparent to Duke Leto Atreides as his family accepts control of the desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the "spice" melange. Melange is the most important and valuable substance in the universe, increasing Arrakis's value as a fief. The story explores the multi-layered interactions of politics, religion, ecology, technology, and human emotion, as the forces of the empire confront each other in a struggle for the control of Arrakis and its "spice".

If you never read the novel, it’s a great work of science fiction. Television’s GAME OF THRONES, would appear to take many storytelling cues from the Dune series, if you need some cultural bearings.  The first DUNE novel in particular is a rich, densely-written and detailed story. The 1984 movie captures almost none of this.

The end result is not a David Lynch film per se. It is a compromise between Lynch’s surrealism and the expensive blockbuster that producers Dino De Laurentiis and Rafaella De Laurentiis wanted. It was poorly reviewed at the time and although its reputation has gained a little since its release, more than 25 years later it is still a deeply flawed movie.

The biggest problem is the screenplay. The first Dune novel is a lengthy work. The story would have benefited from being sliced into two or possibly even three parts. Unless you’ve read the book, there is little chance you will work out who is doing what to whom and why. When the Atreides family travel to Arrakis in their giant fleet of ships, they park them in a much larger, cylindrical vessel which they enter through a vast "steam-punk" slot. Those uninitiated into DUNE world are then left to puzzle an odd sequence where a manatee-like creature apparently sucks in and craps out pulses of animated light as it floats in a plasmic void surrounded by motes of light suspended in some kind of cosmic fluid. The cylinder ship then fades into existence in orbit around Arrakis. Turns out the manatee is a navigator from the Space Guild. The ingestion and evacuation of light pulses represents the manipulation of Tme and Space. The manatee eat-craps enough Space Time to shift an entire fleet of ships half way across the galaxy! And I thought Allied Pickfords did a good job when they moved the contents of our entire house in three hours.

This is only one of a dozen moments entertaining in terms of eye-catching production design or high camp weirdness, but they do not add up to a coherent whole into which one may immerse onself.  There’s a great scene where a Space Guild manatee is rolled through the palace of the Emperor (Jose Ferrer) in a structure that is somewhere between an old-fashioned museum display case and a Pullman sleeper car from the 1950s. Conversation with the manatee is effected through a flunky who looks like Rob Halford in the early stages of a Borg assimilation.  Rob Halford has a flunky of his own, whose job it is to lug about what looks like a giant 1930s style microphone but is in fact Halford’s translator device. It’s 20,000 years in our future, and no one has thought to download a universal translation app onto their Samsung Galaxy Melange? Halford, the manatee and the Emperor have a chat about how they’re gonna destroy House Atreides real good.  If you read the book, you’ll know it’s because Duke Leto (Jurgen Prochnow) is popular and is a threat to the Emperor. The Space Guild can see into the future and know that his son Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) will affect the flow of the all-important Spice. They’re probably not all that jazzed with his stint as a cast member of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, either. If you haven’t read the book, it’s a WTF scene where Eurotrash extras have seemingly gathered in a ballroom, awaiting the arrival of Falco.

LEFT: The Emperor hopes the Chattanooga Choo Choo is carrying Europop royalty.

The acting is rather variable. Lynch has his regulars amongst the huge cast. Everett McGill is great as Stilgar the hard-fighting leader of the Fremen. Jack Nance is some kind of flunky to Baron Harkonnen. He never looks quite like he knows why he is there, which is usually the point with a Nance character in a Lynch film. Worst acting awards go to Paul L Smith as an allegedly evil character called Raban. Smith has the feel of an old-school wrestler. He really ought to be calling out Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and Hulk Hogan. His acting chops are non-existent. Every moment that involves his hammy leering and face-pulling effectively take you out of the movie. Almost as bad is rock star Sting of Police fame. He is particularly painful to watch despite having very little dialogue. He is supposed to be a vicious killer but his main purpose is to serve as eye-candy for the ladies.  Virginia Madsen plays Princess Irulan who is vouchsafed the confusing opening narration and then has no lines for the rest of the movie. Unlike M. Le Sting, Madsen can act and one can only speculate that all her dialogue was cut. A pre-STAR TREK Patrick Stewart is good in the role of warrior Gurney Halleck, but is also underused.

My “favourite” moment in the film is a small one. Sting and the Evil Baron arrive to taunt Thufir Hawat. Jack Nance is there playing an accordion or operating a torture device. Hard to tell. The next part is actually somewhat irritating for real world reasons. Sting arrives with a crate that has a neon tube in it, which helps to reveal there is an actual live Sphinx cat inside (and therefore no Shrodinger gag to be made). The cat has its hindquarters in a sling device and it looks like it would rather be elsewhere. Even though I assume their animal action was overseen by the ASPCA, I don’t like seeing an animal made uncomfortable for any film. It’s enough that we in the audience are suffering. Right next to the Sphinx cat, in some kind of tube, is a live rat looking very relaxed. The Baron informs Thufir that there is now a poison in his bloodstream and that unless he milks the cat daily for the antidote, he will die. This all feels like pure Lynch.

LEFT: Sting, Kenneth McMillan, Jack Nance and Freddie Jones. “I have brought you a little cat, Thufir.”

The movie ends in a welter of old-school special effects that show their age. There is a myriad of Mexican extras flying backwards as stuff explodes. Kyle Atreides leads an attack riding on the back of a “giant’ sand worm. These worms never look like anything more than sophisticated sock puppets. Getting us through the visual silliness is the rocking score by Toto. The Grammy award-winning American band responsible for such Australian commercial radio mainstays as Rosana and Africa do a great job in creating an epic sound to accompany the desert warfare. I was so impressed that I geeked out and bought a copy of the soundtrack.

So, if you’ve never seen DUNE the movie, I suggest reading the first Dune novel before you do. If you regard the film more as a highlights reel or the longest montage in sci-fi movie history, then there is plenty to enjoy.

Cheers,

Mr Trivia