pogoism

Having seen Baz Lurhmann’s previous films, Moulin Rouge! and Romeo + Juliet, I had high hopes for his latest offering “Australia”. Australia doesn’t have the same whirlwind editing that his previous films had, but it does keep the melodramatic emotion.

It doesn’t disappoint. You’ll no doubt hear that it’s long. And at 2 hours and 45 minutes, it is. But it’s never boring. Yes, it’s true that it could have been cut down dramatically – the first 2 hours of the movie are poorly paced, but the visuals and story more than make up for this – it’s enthralling.

Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, who arrives in Australia to discover that her husband has been murdered, and inherits his cattle farm. She meets The Drover (Hugh Jackman), who helps her to run the farm. A competition between her and the rival cattle farm ensues to secure a contract with the Army.

This film isn’t just a melodrama though, it has a bit of everything – war saga, love story, Western, social-conscious drama, all making it very watchable. And, as usual, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman give stellar performances.

If you get a chance to see this, you should. Having said that, I wouldn’t make a massive effort to if you’re not a fan of Baz Lurhmann’s previous work. It is, after all, fluff.

After the jump, the trailer for Australia.

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In my wonderful British ignorance, I knew nothing about Thanksgiving until today. So here’s a few things you UK people probably didn’t know about Thanksgiving…

• It dates back to Harvest festivals, celebrated by loads of cultures at harvest times.
• It’s celebrated on the fourth Thursday of Novemeber.
• In 1691, a Native American with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel and grow corn, and acted as an interpreter. Then they had a feast.
• Turkey is the traditional centerpiece, hence the alternative name of Turkey Day (which confused me, but thats a story for another blog…).
• Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held on Thanksgiving morning in New York City, and broadcast live on television.
• American football is a big deal.
• The day after Thanksgiving day, Black Friday, is when stores have sales, and marks the beginning of Christmas shopping season.
• Thanksgiving in 2014 will fall on Thursday, 27th November.
• In an absurd tradition, the President and other high members of office (such as Governor) will “pardon” a turkey. The turkey (and back-up turkey) that the President pardons is flown from Washington DC to California, where it leads the Disneyland Thanksgiving Parade. Cute.

Anyway, I digress. I had a fun Thanksgiving day this year. I went round to my friend Lauren’s and we ate a sensible amount of delicious food. Then we played Taboo, which I rock at, probably because I talk too fast, and because I’m “literal” apparently.

And that was Thanksgiving.

Oh, I found Cadbury’s chocolate as well today in WalMart. Tried some, and it’s actually okay. Not quite like the proper stuff from the UK, but nice enough.

Post deleted… it was a bit bitchy.

Here’s a nice video!

To quote my friend, “where the hell did this chick come from?”. And, to be honest, I have no idea.

I had heard bits about her, though never bothered to look up any of her stuff. Then, I saw an ad on Facebook for her, and I was bored… so I YouTubed her. I first found the video for the track “Just Dance” with it’s infectious baseline and catchy “oh oh oh oh”‘s. Then I found “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich”, and I was hooked.

Over the last few months, since the release of “Just Dance” in the US, she’s gained quite a cult following – particularly with the gays. This record combines futuristic electronica with catching drumbeats and captivating lyrics that’ll leave you humming tracks for days.

On the surface, her album “The Fame” seems like another dull club-anthem filled record, but it’s so much more than that. Unlike Britney Spears and others, she can actually write music (she wrote the entire album), and from what I’ve seen on YouTube, she can sing live too. She’ll no doubt get comparisons to Gwen Stefani, but Lady GaGa’s offering is much more developed than Stefani’s solo attempts.

The album is ladened with innuendo, with the most obvious one in “LoveGame” – “Lets have some fun / This beat is sick / I wanna take a ride / On your disco stick”. However, this doesn’t mean this is a tacky album – quite the opposite. She takes the usual lyrics about money, boys, celebrity and body image, and makes them into what is a very original album.

If you haven’t already, Lady GaGa is worth checking out.

After the jump, the video for “Just Dance” and a live version of “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich”

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Virginia City is an odd place.

It’s one of the most famous of the mining boomtowns in the Old West, and lies on the site of the Comstock Lode silver deposit – the first major silver deposit found in the US. The deposit, found in 1859, brought the population of the city to 30,000. However, this dropped when the Comstock Lode ended in 1898.

Virginia City itself is a National Historic Landmark, and as such does not have any chain stores or fast food restaurants. It’s pretty much a ghost town. The city manages to draw about 2 million visitors every year. To be honest, if you travelled far to get here, you might be somewhat disappointed.

There isn’t much in the way of things to do in the city, but it’s a fun place to walk around. There are two main attractions:

• The Suicide Table – located in one (of the many) saloons, the Suicide Table is a poker table where supposedly many people have gambled away their fortunes and killed themselves. Nice.
• The Way It Was Museum – which shuts really early, so we didn’t actually get to go round. I’m sure it’s interesting though.
• … and loads of candy shops, souvenir shops, antique shops and saloons.

Oh! And I almost forgot. Mark Twain started his career as a journalist in Virginia City.

As usual, more photos over on the ‘ole Flickr.

Last weekend a mate and I went on a little road trip to Los Angeles. The drive there from Reno, down the SIerra Highway, is absolutely stunning, really beautiful. The highway takes you through the Sierra Nevada mountains, which were covered in snow, set against a perfect blue sky backdrop. We also passed by numerous lakes, such as June Lake, Mono Lake and the Mammoth Lakes, as well as going through towns such as Bishop, Lone Pine (where numerous Westerns have been filmed), and the Mojave desert. The highest mountain in the contiguous United States, Mt. Whitney (14, 505 ft), is also on the drive.

Then we got to Lancaster, CA, the ninth fastest growing town in the US, and our place to stay for the night. Went out for a nice meal to some Mexican place, and found a place to stay (eventually). Had a good nights sleep before our day in LA…

Woke up fairly early so we could get on the road and see as much of LA as we could, and got ourselves a copy of the Lonely Planet guide to California. However, as we were driving along Hwy 5 to LA, we noticed some smoke over the hills. Uh-oh. LA county being somewhat infamous for its wildfires, we feared the worst. And we were right, We got massively diverted and ended up driving for many more hours than we should have done. In the end we didn’t get to see much of LA, but we did go to Santa Monica, and drove through Hollywood, and then to Pomona to the party we were going to.

Santa Monica lies on the coast of LA county, west of LA city. I was shocked at how hot it was down there, 90F! In the middle of November! But anyway, Santa Monica was nice, I guess I’d describe it as an American Brighton – it has a pier and good shopping and food (though the service was a bit bad).

Then we went drove through Hollywood, on the way to Pomona. Again, we didn’t see much of that either, due to a massive Prop 8 demonstration. And then Pomona – don’t remember much of that.

Woke up on Sunday morning with surprisingly little of a hangover, off to Denny’s (my first trip to Denny’s might I add, and hopefully not my last!) to refuel before the long drive back home…

So, overall, a fantastic weekend! 

More photos over on my Flickr.

via Towleroad

Honestly, this is one of the most moving things I’ve seen in a long while, and certainly something I never thought I’d see on US television.

I don’t really need to say anymore.

Just watch.

The transcript after the jump…

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And they weren’t very fair. Predictably, they only showed the rubbish casino area around 4th Street. But it’s a funny video anyway!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhH5wqFfoWc (the poster disabled embedding, so you’ll have to click through to see it…)

A few quotes from the clip…

…Reno, which is like Las Vegas, only small. And worse. It’s a town with lightbulbs on it.

What an appalling cack hole.

Aww, poor Reno…

Here’s a funny tune from the film Reno 911! : Miami…

Lyrics after the jump…

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He did it. Barack Obama has been elected the next President of the United States.

And I couldn’t be happier. I’ve followed this election since it began about 2 years ago, through the Primaries and then to the real campaigning. I was even lucky enough to arrive in the US just as it was hotting up, and got to see Obama twice when he came to Reno. 

Back home I was fairly politically minded, but to be honest, politics at home in dull. In England, we’re used to boring old men in suits, and they all seem as bad as each other, with no massive differences in their policies – basically wanting to bring everything down to the lowest common denominator. And they’re certainly not inspirational or charismatic.

In Northern Ireland it’s even worse. Most people are even more disengaged from the political process because of what politics has caused. Politics means sectarianism, violence, anger and graffiti, and as a result, most people steer clear.

However, American politics is completely different. With vast amounts of money being poured into this election, estimated at around $2.5 billion, this campaign was enthralling. I can only comment from my experience of Obama rallies, but having been to a few, he truly is inspiring -from the way his speeches are written so that the crowd is roused up, let down for a bit, then roused up again to the careful selection of music, always ending in Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours”.

It’s fantastic to see America get over the race issue (even if it couldn’t get over the gay issue), and hopefully during the next 4 years, we’ll begin to see a change.

After the jump, in case you missed it, is Obama’s victory speech, delivered in front of 124,000 people in Grant Park, Chicago.

Photo via Flickr user JBVFromFK.

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