Sydney Sydney Sydney

So I'm off again! This time, not so far away - Sydney, which is really just a quick hop from Auckland. Three hours rather than thirty, which I appreciate. I'm now sitting beside a large sculpture of an erupting volcano, listening to birds and tinkling water. Ooh, some chanting too. The lava changes colour from blue to purple to red and green. I have my suitcase-I-found-on-the-side-of-the-road-two-years-ago, which I predicted two years ago would not last much longer. Ha. It's been to Sydney, Tokyo, North London, Other North London, Greenwich, North London, Greenwich, North London, Greenwich, Auckland and back to Sydney (I used it to move house).

I should probably make my way to the gate, and see what China Air planes are like :)

Later...

It turns out that China Air isn't PRChina China, but Taiwan China. My plane was full of people going to Taipei via Sydney, and I'd checked in early enough to get a nice window seat (though of course by the time we lifted off it was dark and you couldn't really see much). After some trouble with my headphones (I was plugging them into the wrong armrest), I watched How to Train Your Dragon and Suits, and then we were landing through some pretty rough turbulence in Sydney.

My awesome friend The Angel picked me up and I found out just how terrible I am at passing along directions in a car. After a bit of circle-driving, we got back to her place and had a nice evening with movies and I tried to get used to Sydney time.

On Tuesday I took a few buses to university and enrolled, then wandered round the campus figuring out where things were. Enjoyed the weather, which was sunny and warm after the hail in Auckland. Later I ended up in town and we went to see a scary movie called The Conjuring, which did its job pretty well.

Hopefully sleep will come tonight....

Zombies, Silent Disco and the Science Museum

I'm getting rather late with my posts. But there's so much to do! Packing, seeing everyone, eating very strange meals to use up all the food I have in my cupboard... On Wednesday a group of us went to the Late Night at the Science Museum, which was zombie themed. I was held up and late, so from South Kensington tube station I ran through the subway and up the stairs to the Science Museum. There were lots of people milling around and a sort of queue, but it was a very haphazard queue and I wasn't sure if it was really a queue or just people coming down the road. I wandered through the doors and got a pamphlet from a lady, then texted people to see where they were.

It turned out the queue really was a queue. Tricky Ricky had waited for half an hour and Twitterboy and his friend were still in line outside. And I, oblivious antipodean that I am, walked straight in.

They had actors shuffling around dressed as zombies, and lots of zombie-themed activities including zombie-rights picket lines. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any that didn't involve waiting for an hour, so we retreated to the silent disco and claimed headphones.

Silent discos are awesome. Everyone has wireless headphones with three channels, and they have at least two djs working at a time. This means that whenever you get bored of a song you can switch channels and hear something else. You can see what channel other people are listening to because the headphones have lights that glow different colours according to the channel. We had two channels going, and it's amazing how fast the crowd can shift between mostly listening to one song and then mostly to another. At one point YMCA came on, and almost immediately everyone was doing the actions.

And if you don't like either of the songs, it's a surreal experience to take off your headphones and hear people singing along to two different songs at once, with no backing music.

One of the things I will be leaving behind in the UK is my unlimited movie card. It seems like there are so many movies coming out on February 8 that I want to see, and now I'll have to pay for them individually! One, Warm Bodies (a zombie movie from the zombie's point of view) doesn't come out in NZ until April, and I was bemoaning the necessity of waiting for it. But then I noticed the advanced viewing at the Science Museum IMAX - this is zombie month after all.

So on Sunday I went back across London to see the movie. The cinema was completely full, with a few extra zombies who moaned and groaned at the screen through the credits and looked generally worrying to sit next to. I enjoyed the movie, though I think I would have liked it better if they'd had an extra line near the end explaining where the main characters were running to (or maybe it was there and I missed it). It's a good movie otherwise, with lots of jokes and ironic musings on life.

At this moment I am on a train to Stafford - my last UK trip for a while. The sun is out and shining into the carriage and all the fields are spring green.

 

Amsterdam Days 5 & 6: Van Gogh, Flea Markets and Flying Back

I'm back in the UK now, and on a train to Ipswich. I like how fast the trains go, it really makes you feel as if you're getting somewhere. I got back to London on Thursday morning, and have had barely enough time to watch four movies at the cinema before going off again for a nice visit with the rellies in Ipswich.

Okay, now that I've written that, the train is going slowly. Hmm. Where's the 'faster than fairies, fast than witches/Bridges and houses and hedges and ditches'?

Anyway, I have been a bit slack (I always seem to do this with the last few days of a holiday - I think 'I will write it all up as soon as I get home!' and then I go to four movies instead). I got up to my last full day in Amsterdam, which started earlier than any other because I had an exhibition to get to. So, I left the hostel at 10am, after a nice almost-pat of the cat, who was sitting with its back to me on the table.

The sun was out, and it was almost warm. Apparently the canals freeze over later in the winter and people skate everywhere, which was hard to believe with the sun shining slants of light past the tall houses and irregular rooftops and the water sliding dreamily by. I had to keep stopping to take photos, and by the time I got to the Van Gogh exhibition (held in the world's first Stock Exchange. I think.) I thought I'd have to queue. But no! I paid my money, collected my 3D glasses and descended, at the security guard's indication, down some stairs, past the ladies loos and into the exhibition.

This seemed somewhat strange, but after the first few paintings I forgot about everything else. The idea of the exhibition is to bring together 200 works by Van Gogh and present them digitally retouched so you see the original colours, rather than the faded versions of today. This means there aren't any actual Van Gogh paintings in the exhibition, but it's still amazing to see these paintings you know so well in their full vibrancy. Van Gogh used early synthetic paints which have faded pretty badly over time, so blues and reds sometimes don't come through. As well as the remastered paintings, some of the most famous works have been interpreted through 3D animation, which was pretty cool.

The final section of the exhibition was held in the vaults of the building, which explained the location in the basement. It showcased paintings now lost, whether through fire, Nazi repossession or burglary, presented in actual safes.

After some wandering around the streets and across the bridges (sometimes rather frenzied wandering, as I got later and more lost), I met TOWSR in the main square. There was a lion dance happening, complete with extremely loud ground-level fireworks and copious clouds of smoke, so we watched that for a while before going to find the flea markets.

I had very little money on me (I was determined not to change any more pounds to euros) but we had a good time admiring the wares and checking out the lego buildings of the old Jewish quarter. Last stop on our itinerary was the supermarket, then dinner and sleep. I had to leave at 7.15 the next morning.

It was still dark, and I realised as I walked to the bus stop that I didn't actually know what a bus stop looked like. Were they in the same place as the tram stops? I didn't think they shared stops. I ended up walking well past the invisible bus stop and on through Museumplein, which I hadn't seen properly and was actually quite nice. Finally I found a bus stop (just past the tram stop, and on top of the tram lines rather than on the road) and got on the next bus to the airport.

Schipol airport is a lot like a gigantic mall, with added check-in desks and holes in the floor through which you descend to the train station. On the plane, our pilot came out of the cockpit and told us he'd be flying the plane, and if anyone wanted to get off now they could. The flight was quick, into London's sixth airport Southend, customs even quicker and then I and my new plane-buddy got a train to Stratford. Of London airports, I think it's probably the quickest and easiest, bar City. And finally, home!

Well, actually, Stratford Westfield mall, Pitch Perfect (awesome) and then home.

The name's Bond.

I have a blow up boot thing that means I can walk! A bit! With crutches! I took advantage of this to spend the day at the movies, making the most of my free movies card and my sore crutch hands.

One of the films I saw was Skyfall, at the big screen where I saw Spiderman (well, one of the times I saw Spiderman). Like when I saw Spiderman, they had film problems. Last time it was the coordination of the 3D images. This time everything was pink for a while, which it turns out is very distracting. Everything was back to normal by the time the actual movie started (there were a very, very many ads, ninety percent of which were Bond themed) so I got to witness the Istanbul opening sequence in proper technicolor.

And I had been to many of the places! I recognised the exotic street corners and bits of mosque wall! I realised that the compositing if locations was done with quite a bit if artistic license, because there was no way some scenes could have happened in the real places, unless there was some time-space stretching going on. But what am I talking about? This is a Bond film. They laugh in the face of reality and probable-sequence-of-events.

Bond films can do this, I think. You can see the filmmakers gleefully rubbing the hands as they contemplate different action scenes. What do you mean, it's unlikely there'll be (highlight the spoilers if you want them) a digger and four VW Beatles on a Turkish passenger train? It's all right! It looks awesome! The audience will accept it! The bar of willing suspension of disbelief is higher for Bond. We want to see a fun movie. We don't really care about the little details, like the fact that Circle and District underground trains do not run in deep-level tunnels. We can forgive, if you give us villains using entire (strangely empty) Jubilee line trains as weapons at Embankment Station, where Jubilee trains do not run. Ha! That beats a puny little laser, Goldfinger.

It's a good movie and I really enjoyed it (though I was slightly concerned that the villain was portrayed as gay, considering various 'moral' debates at the moment. Yay for having gay characters on screen and having a more numerically-accurate representation of society, but not so great that it was portrayed negatively. There's already enough negativity around, and it just solidifies prejudices, doesn't it?).

I've been thinking about plotting lots this week, considering I'm doing Nanowrimo next week, and so I went into Skyfall with a particular eye. The movie follows the beats of a story well - problem, try to solve, doesn't work, try to solve, maybe we have, yes we have! Oh... no, screwed up. Badly. Try to solve... Fall back... Try to solve... Maybe... Yes! It was also interesting in that they address Bond's seeming invulnability - a character who has too much skill or power is too easy to get out of situations, so there's much less tension. I have been struggling with this in my Nanowrimo planning - how do you stop a character from becoming unbeatable, especially in fantasy? In Skyfall, you're no longer sure that Bond will be up to the challenges he faces. You're reasonably sure he won't die in the end, but there are lots of things that could happen that don't include him dying... Tension is higher because Bond isn't so perfect anymore.

And, I have to admit, I cried. This is the second time I have cried in a Bond film. The first time was when a car in one of the Pierce Brosnan movies got sliced in half by a helicopter-mounted circular saw. This time also involved the destruction of a car... No, I don't want to talk about it.

So I'm inspired, and back to the plotting! Must figure out how to heighten the tension and maybe think of a few scenes with explosions...

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Gridlock London, Spider-man and Comic Books

I know, I know, I haven't done a blog post in a while now. I have been trying to figure out the best way to get to work when they close half of a major tunnel for the Olympics and it backs up the traffic so that my bus takes twice as long to get to the tube station. The transport for London people were kind of helpful - they've supplied us with walking maps of the area - but even with the traffic I think walking would take longer than the bus. I could take the train and change to the tube at London Bridge, but London Bridge is pretty much my most hated train station and they've made it even worse at the moment by closing off the direct route from train to tube. Now you have to go out onto the street, around, and back into the station if you want to get on the Underground.

Ha. Rant over.

Another reason I may not have posted recently is that I have been watching Spider-man. I really like this movie. I have seen it in 3D, 3D-moving seats, and er, twice in 2D. It's free, okay?

I get like this with some things. You may remember my Merlin posts from last year. So I've been trying to figure out what I like about it. Secret identity? Check. Good acting? Check. Minimal plot holes? I think I've found them all now, and they don't bother me too much. I prefer the oh-we-can't-be-together ending in this version much more than the Tobey Maguire ending, which I thought was a bit unbelievable and faintly annoying (oh, I love you so much I'm going to stay away from you out of the amazing moral awesomeness of my heart. Come on. It's cliché). I also liked that Peter Parker wasn't that stereotypical geeky guy who always gets picked on - the character development was great. You can really see that pre-spider bite Peter could become Spider-man.

My slight obsession with the movie got me thinking about comic books, and why I love comic-book style stories but not comic books. Or manga or graphic novels. I feel I should like them. I like art, and I like stories. Graphic novels have both. So why can't I get into them?

Maybe it's because I feel I have to study the pictures in depth and really appreciate them and so I never get into the flow of things. Maybe I miss the description of books, and my brain isn't satisfied with pictures (though I did love the Hugo Cabret book, which is half in words and half in pictures). Whatever the reason, my brain just doesn't click with them. It's the same with video games. I like driving games and the flying bits in Spyro and Harry Potter, but anything else and I get bored.

I guess lots of people can't get into books the same way I can't get into graphic novels.

Oh, and by the way, if you can get to watch Spider-man with moving seats, do it. It's awesome. I thought it would be a bit distracting, but I missed it when I watched it again without the seats. I kept expecting to feel the explosions or rock back when Spider-man's swinging, and was disappointed when it didn't happen.

Is there a particular medium you get bored with?

 

A week of books and movies

Hello all! I thought you might like a bit of time to read all the Turkey posts, but I'm back now! I've been having an entertainment-filled week, so I will report on that.

First, Rock of Ages. I went in with low expectations due to reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, but it was amazing. I felt like dancing out of my seat but thought it might annoy the people behind me, and also considered hands-above-the-head clapping, but dismissed it for the same reason. My flatmates also liked it, and we shared our guilt over the fact that none of us have been to the stage show, which is probably better and has been showing in the West End for a while (this is a common conversation, also undertaken after seeing War Horse and Mamma Mia). The story of Rock of Ages was perhaps a little well-worn, but it's a feel-good musical, people, and the songs were pretty awesome. And the dancing. Especially loved the Alec Baldwin/Russell Brand duet.

Next up was Snow White and the Huntsman, which I enjoyed though found myself distracted by outside thoughts every so often and had to remind myself to focus-on-movie. It's a very pretty movie, though I thought the Snow-White-as-chosen-one thing was a bit random. Was this because she's not so much a chosen one in the original story, or some other reason? Do I just have a thing against chosen ones? I like Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker. Is it a boy/girl thing? I hope not. I get the feeling the chosen-one stuff was weighted more towards the end and not introduced properly, though that might just be because I didn't notice it towards the beginning. Anyway, I didn't mind too much, and enjoyed the motion-master effects of the seats in front of me, especially the explosions (they have motion-master seats in my local theatre!).

Final movie of the weekend was Men in Black 3, which I loved. They have so many little by-the-by jokes in their world building so you're laughing much of the way through, and then there's a twist at the end that I thought was really well-done but won't say anything about. Definitely recommended.

And in books! I finished Garth Nix's A Confusion of Princes, which was hilarious and addictive. I loved the voice of the main character, and the fact that the MC is already guaranteed (and feels entitled to) an extraordinary destiny rather than the normal-character-finding-extraordinary-destiny trope that you see a lot.

I think I am using too-many-dashes.

Moving on to the next book (yes I have seen/read this many things this week. I am catching up on my entertainment): Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star. This is a Jack the Ripper ghost story set in modern London, and seriously freaked me out, especially as the next door neighbour has recently started making loud banging noises in his back garden at 11 o'clock at night which may or may not be the sound of bodies being dismembered. I really enjoy reading books set in London while in London, because sometimes you know the places you're being shown and get a little thrill of recognition (this happened with the last Cassandra Clare Infernal Devices book too - she describes an alley that I walk down almost weekly!). Anyway, The Name of the Star has lots of awesome things to recommend it: ghosts, London, murder investigations, evaluation/criticism of the media, boarding school, brave heroine, secret lives, disguise, the Tube... So, yes, it's good. Go read it :-)

Have a good week!

Mooovies

Still summer here. We have a four day weekend coming up, though, so rain and cold is pretty much guaranteed.

I took advantage of my unlimited movie card last week and saw two movies in two days: Beauty and the Beast in 3D (for the second time) and The Raid. I spent most of Beauty and The Beast marvelling at its genius and trying to figure out what makes it so good (love the prologue with the stained glass, love the first scene with Belle walking through the village and everyone singing, love the music and the lyrics, nice segue to introduction of Belle's father, great explosions... I wonder how far through the movie I can get?). Beauty and the Beast was the first film I ever saw at the cinema, and I still remember sitting there in the dark and staring up at the gigantic screen, feet dangling and worrying intermittently about being eaten by the fold-down seats. I had a colouring book, too, with Belle and Beast in the snow with the little birdies. Belle may also have been my model for book-reading habits, with her ability to wander through a crowded market while reading a book without crashing into anything.

And the ending! All sparkles and happy people, though I've always liked the furniture versions of the servants more than the human versions. I also faintly object to the platinum-blondness of the Prince. Why do fairytale princes have to have long, flowing blonde locks? Still, good movie.

I was expecting The Raid to be in English, but it's in Indonesian with subtitles (Brother Ecl says he thought the main characters were going to be bad guys because they weren't speaking English. Sad but true commentary on Hollywood movies). I don't mind subtitles (in fact I think it's better to hear the original words) but was a bit worried I'd miss some of the action because I'd be reading the subtitles. No chance of that - there wasn't that much dialogue. There was lots and lots of action, though, and for some reason it was all easy to follow. Normally I glaze over a bit when fights last long than a minute, but there was something about The Raid that meant you were glued to the screen all the way through.

We were a bit late, so never got introduced to the main character. This meant I wasn't sure who was the main character until right at the end, when he was pretty much the only one left. I quite liked it that way, because it kept it surprising. Normally you know the main character will live to the end, but if you don't know who the main character is anyone might be next. I wonder if this would work in a book? Hmm. Maybe a short story.

Enjoyed any good movies recently?

On the silver screen

This week has been much like many other weeks in the scheme of things (apart from the fact that the new series of Merlin has reawakened my Merlin obsession. When will it end??? Maybe when I get the second and third series on DVD, which weren’t available in NZ but are available here. Yes, that will stop it). I had a lull between books to read in the tube, so for once I took the free newspaper they give out and actually read it.

It’s worth reading, it turns out. I found an article about a late night at the National Portrait Gallery, themed on the golden (or silver) age of film. They had interesting speakers and music and live photoshopping of photos, and were offering to make you up as a 40s film star.

This was something I was going to.

I was a bit suspicious that half of London might want to go too, so I arrived forty minutes before the night opened and stood in a long queue (people really do seem to love queuing. I waited ten minutes for an ATM the other day because people had somehow convinced themselves that one of the two ATMs was out of order. It wasn’t. It was just that they were only queuing behind one of them, and nobody was brave enough to get out of line. Me included...). There were lots of people who’d really dressed for the occasion in vintage dresses and hats, as well as some who had just taken the opportunity to dress up as anything – one woman was dressed in a medieval gown and cloak.

Staff came down the line and gave out appointments, but there were rather more people than they’d expected and by the time they got to me they were only handing out lipstick appointments. This was better than nothing, so I took my appointment card and wandered around the gallery until my makeup artist was free.

I learnt some new Photoshop techniques from the touch-up artist, and watched the photographers train people to model like film stars. Then I received some ruby-red lips and got lost in a few galleries before finding a science tour about immortality and slowing the aging process, which was very interesting.

Maybe I’ll be a forties film star when I grow up. I can join my friend Fifties Film Star! Who wants to be Sixties Film Star?

Detail. And Hobbiton :D

I went to Hobbiton recently. Mwa ha ha. And I signed a thingy that said I can’t tell anyone anything and my pictures must Never Go on the Internet. So unfortunately you don’t get any amazing photos of a movie set that’s about to start filming. I should be allowed to say it was awesome, though, right? Because it’s a Peter Jackson/Weta Workshop thing and awesomeness is kind of assumed.

But anyway, it got me thinking about detail and how much work people can put into something to make it special. Lots of the stuff Weta makes will never have more than a few seconds on screen, or maybe no time at all.

I think writing is a bit the same. A lot of the work is never seen. It might take six years to write a book, and six hours to read it. You might have written twice, three times, ten times the number of words that appear in the book. You’ve thought about a thousand different details, trying to get everything exactly right.

And drawing too. When you’re drawing you make all the light pencil marks, lines here and there and everywhere, and then finally you take your brush or your marker or whatever and you start the final shapes, the ones that everyone will see.

The bones are always there behind it, supporting and guiding. The work is put in, and even if you catch only glimpses of it, it makes things all the more real. You’re immersed in the film, the novel, the work of art. You know there’s an entire world in behind there.

 I think it would be awesome working as a set designer and maker on a movie. You’re making fiction into reality. When I see The Hobbit next year, I’m going to be awed and amazed by that reality.

Though I may spend a decent amount of time poking people and saying ‘I’ve seen that! I’ve seen that!’

:P