Columbo & Australian Idol

Had a lot more time for tv lately due to illness and lack of visitors. Here's 2 of the highlights.



COLUMBO
On Tuesday and Wednesday I went down hard with flu-like symptoms. Ended up doing a bit of work but got a little R&R too. Sat down Tuesday and watched "Columbo", a show I hadn't seen in probably 15 years. It was a really good one about a dentist who found out his wife was having an affair with one of his patients, so he put poison in a filling which eventually killed him but he set it up to make it look like the wife spiked his drink. Very good episode, impressing me so much i watched another episode the next day. The next one was about another wife having an affair, also involving a spiked drink but this time strangulation also, which was a good twist. Good stories, good cast all held together by the glue that is Peter Falk as Columbo. Top shelf murder mystery and a lot less gory thatn those CSI shows they have these days.

I'm even thinking about getting a season on DVD, and this trailer may have tipped me over the edge.





All week it's been auditions for Australian Idol, and wifey and I are right into it. There seems to be a decent variety of performers this year, only problem being that several will bomb out when the weekly theme is completely foreign to them ie when the country & western kid has to do disco or the metal guy has to do an Elton John song. Early favourites would have to be Tom Williams from SA or the folky chick from London. Looking forward to Sunday Night's episode. Stay tuned for a comprehensive recap.

Juno

So on Friday, against my preference, wifey got out "Juno" from Blockbuster. I was so not keen on seeing it for several reasons, yet was surprised- it annoyed me even more than I expected.

Juno (played by Ellen Page) is perhaps one of the most annoying leads from a teen movie in recent memory. She's a cocky, alternative teenager who decides one day she wants to express her feelings physically with her longtime friend Bleeker (played well by Michael Cera). As luck would have she gets pregnant and is faced with a big decision. She decides at first to go the abortion route but when she gets annoyed in the waiting room she decides to just give it up for adoption. She quickly finds a suitable couple called Mark and Vanessa (played well by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) in a local paper and her mind is at ease. She's a little cautious at first but eventually becomes very comfortable with them as Mark turns out to be really cool and Jennifer seems really genuine and excited. Just when things seem too perfect, Mark and Vanessa split and Juno has another big decision to make. Luckily though everything turns out cool and Juno can shoot the baby out and get back to her real life and emerging cool band.

Objectionable and troubling on many levels. If you're a parent and your teen daughter gets pregnant, I wouldn't recommend getting out the popcorn and popping this on. Deals with some extremely serious topics in a very irresponsible and appaling manner.

At the end of the movie wifey thought I was over the top with my analysis, yet has issues with some of the violent stuff I watch so I guess the moral is.......

"Different movies, different things to be offended by"

Crows v Saints

On Sunday arvo dad, James and I headed to the Telstra Dome to watch the Crows take on the mighty Saints. Here's my observations.

-There was a lot of fanfare for Robert Harvey's 380th and possibly last game in Melbourne. It was only going to be his last game if they lost. I guess Saints supporters normally go the pessimistic route.
-I entertained myself and James with a lot of questions Harvey may be asked after the game eg
"What would have been your most disappointing season?"
"Which team mate frustrated you most?"
"Who was the worst coach you had?"
"Did Grant Thomas really know what he was doing?"
-Not to my surprise, Craigy (pictured) opted to start Rutten on Riewoldt. Now I love Rutten but here's a few problems with that match-up. (1) Riewoldt is much taller. (2) Riewoldt is much fitter. (3) Riewoldt can jump much higher. On Riewoldt you really need a taller player with an engine who can leap ie Nathan Bock.
-Crows start well, drilling some good goals from a variety of players.
-In the 2nd half we absolutely stunk. I made about 37 references to the Bock/Rutten matchup which was really hurting us. James started off being annoyed by me but came around to my philosophy by the 3rd quarter. For some reason Craigy played Bock on Riewoldt when Kossy was down forward but when Kossy went to the ruck, moved Bock to Charlie Gardiner. He stuck with this genius game plan, as well as Massie on Milne. Now unless Massie is our best defender, why would you play him on Buddy Franklin one time, then on Milne another? Mind boggling.

Anyway we looked awful in the 2nd half and our midfield gave us nothing. Originally I thought we'd get a home final and a win in the 1st round but now we likely face StKilda or Collingwood in week 1. We're toast.

Dream Team v Boomers

A tad belated I know, but last Weds night sat down to watch the much hyped Boomers v Dream Team game.

Was all ready for the 10pm start, but we were running a little late due to the gripping end to the Australia v Japan womens softball game. 15min gone and we're still watching softball. Now I know people love softball, but here's just a couple of reasons I thought they should have left the game and gone to the basketball.

1/ In 2012, softball won't be being played in the Olympics
2/ Softball is probably about the 83rd most popular sport in the world. Basketball would be 2nd
3/ The basketball game had been in the news all day. The softball hadn't.
4/ The softball game wasn't even men's softball.

Anyway at 10:30pm I jumped for joy when Japan scored and hence won the game. I've never been happier to see Japan beat Australia. We joined the basketball action a few minutes into the 2nd quarter with Australia down by about 8. I'd been watching the scores on ESPN and knew we had a great 1st quarter and only trailled by 1. Unfortunately that's as close as it ever got as the Aussies offence went down the toilet, causing many fast breaks. While Patty Mills's drives were spectacular, the US seemed to easily score everytime after he did. Anyway some nice signs for the London where our team will probably be made up of 5 NBA players

PG- Mills
SG- Newley
SF- Ingles
PF- Bogut
C- Jawai

Coming To America

In my opinion this is the finest comedy of all-time. Here's why.

"Coming to America" hit our cinemas in 1989, my first year of high school. I first got wind of it by some bus ads that focused on the fact most of the main characters were played by Eddie Murphy. To my knowledge this was the first time an actor had played so many roles in a movie, of such diversity (this was before he tried this several more times, generally all in awful films except "Bowfinger"). Eddie Murphy was a star and when the reviews came out I knew I had to see it. I'm not sure when I saw it, but I'm pretty sure it was a year or so later on VHS. Here's my Top 20 things about the movie.

1/ Sexual Chocolate. Randy Watson's parody of "The Greatest Love Of All" opened my eyes to the crappiness of modern music. Hilarious scene.

2/ Screen debut for Cuba Gooding Jnr and one of the first for Samuel L Jackson (and yes there was an "F" bomb)

3/ The song "She's Your Queen To Be", most notably the line about being "free from infection"

4/ Arsenio Hall. Awful as Semmi, but brilliant as Morris and Rev. Brown.

5/ John Amos' line "I feel like breakdancing".

6/ "Soul Glo"

7/ Maurice talking about his rise through the ranks at McDowell's

8/ Frankie Faison as the landlord. Just discovered he was Chris Rock's manager in "Down To Earth" and was in 40+ episodes of "The Wire".
*Darren, this may be the clincher to getting me to watch it.

9/ The barber shop scenes.

10/ The girl who talks about her Hollywood ambitions.

11/ Akeem courting Lisa.

12/ Akeem meeting his wife.

13/ The Black Awareness rally.

14/ "I do not use chemicals. Only fruit and berries"

15/ The basketball game

16/ Scenes at their apartment

17/ The night club scene

18/ The hold-up scene

19/ The bad acting of Shari Headley

20/ Sheer rewatchability. Still holds up well after 20 years

Landmark comedy. If you've never seen it, get it out. If you haven't seen it in 5 years, give it another watch.

The visitors keep on coming

From Friday to this morning we had the pleasure of the company of my sister-in-law Breea and Shane. Here's what we got up to.

FRIDAY
After their first experience of crazy traffic (even busier than North tce on a Friday night), they got in, settled, then suggested we head out for a meal. We decided something quick, close and easy was the way to go so went for "Smokin' Joes". We all went for Chicken Parmy's and were all well satisfied. We then came home and watched "Coming to America"). Amazingly, I've never reviewed it, so see next post for my review.

SATURDAY
Had pancakes for breakfast, then all but Isaac and myself went shopping. We hung around and then picked up James and headed to the footy (see post below). Got home around 6:30, had some stir fry, then watched "Michael Clayton" (see post below, again)

SUNDAY
We headed to church while Shane and Breea caught up on some zzzz's. Came home and headed to the Caribbean Gardens. Hadn't been since it was best known for selling pirated video games. Those were the days. Now it's mostly fake gangsta clothing, bongs, crappy art, toys and food. Managed to get a few bargains though which made it worth while. Our boys turned ferral after an hour or so though so time was ticking. Here's some pics.





After this came home and had some pizza while flicking the tv. I went for a well overdue walk, came home and everyone was in bed, so i did likewise. Lovely little weekend.

Crows v Bombers

Saturday August 16,2008 marked a momentous occasion for Issac- attending his first Crows game. The day before I prepared and got him his very own Crows guernsey.

Isaac, James and myself trained it in to Telstra Dome and then sat down to watch the Crows take on the Bombers. For the first half Isaac was brilliant. He kept very busy eating and then with some stickers. At half time i took him for a Maxibon, then we came back into the stadium. The third quarter was much more difficult as he just wanted to roam. Sadly this was when the Crows got into second gear and i didn't get to take much of it in. By the last quarter i got him into some drawing and I was able to watch the boys run away with a great win.

Hopefully debutant Patrick Dangerfield becomes the gun many expect him to as then I can tell Isaac he saw his first ever game. If not I can tell him he saw the day Nick Gill kicked 5, which will surely never ever ever happen again.

Michael Clayton

Michael Clayton is the story of hot shot lawyer Michael Clayton (George Clooney, in his best work since Batman & Robin) who goes about uncovering a stinking $3billion lawsuit that his firm is trying to defend. When his friend Arthur (played by Tom Wilkinson in brilliant performance), who is heading the case gets bumped off, Michael decides to go from being a passive observer to searching for what Arthur had found out. At first he thought Arthur was just suffering from delusions and paranoia due to a lack of required medication but soon he discovers something is really stinky. Michael must eventually decide whether what he is uncovering is worth giving up everything for. Will he do it? See it to find out.

A solid movie and I really liked the fact very little of the actual case was mentioned and there were no courtroom scenes, rare for a movie essentially based around a legal battle. Instead we look more at issues of morality and integrity. Great cast, good script- well worth watching.

PS. This now takes my IMDB reviews count to 200. Thankyou, thankyou very much.

The Dark Knight

So Dean and I headed to Forest Hill Weds night to watch "The Dark Knight". Here's my controversial review.

I'd been waiting to see this for a while, mostly because of how good "Batman Begins" was but also because of the rave reviews of Heath Ledger's performance, apparently his best since "10 Things I Hate About You". Went in expecting a truly classic cinematic performance...and i gotta say i was disappointed.

The film starts out with a gripping bank robbery, done by some blokes in Joker masks. I got all excited when i saw William Fichtner as the bank manager who looked like he was going to foil the robbery, but alas his impact was minimal and he was soon dead. After his performance in "Go", he shouldn't be taking crummy roles like that. Anyway we're soon shown the power and craziness of the Joker and his desire to be Gotham's master criminal. Yep, the Joker is chilling but in what will be an unpopular opinion, I reckon you could have put Screech from "Saved By The Bell" in that make up, with those lines, and be about 80% as terrified. We're then introduced to Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, in his best role since "Double Jeopardy") , the District Attorney with no fear and free from any ounce of corruption and Gordon (Gary Oldman, in his finest role since "Air Force One"), the squeaky clean cop who is hell-bent on bringing down the city's crime. The Joker realises he must take down Dent,Gordon, as well as Batman to take the city over and hatches a brilliant plan to do so.
Will he succeed? See it to find out.

Now it was an ok movie, but way way overhyped eg it's listed as No.3 on IMDB.com's all time best movie list. That puts it ahead of some pretty well known and respected movies ie Pulp Fiction, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Casablanca, Psycho and Taxi Driver just to name a few. I thought it was a decent script, with an excellent cast, but the film just got to clever for itself at times, or at least for a Batman movie. Having said that I missed one or two key moments of the movie, probably due to agitation more than anything else ie that Gordon was driving the van with Dent in the back. I just thought it was weird that the driver wasn't talking and must have been a baddie. It was way too long, at least by 30mins and didn't have enough Bruce Wayne time.

Solid, but I still prefer Batman Begins. Some will love it, some may think it was a tad overdone.

FInally, ledger's performance was good but let's not get carried away and put it up with DeNiro as Travis Bickle, Al Pacino as "Scarface", Anthony Hopkins as "Hannibal" or Keanu Reeves as "Johnny Utah".

Icebreakers- Olympic Edition

MOST POPULAR
"So have you been watching the Olympics?"

TO SOMEONE BORN IN ANOTHER COUNTRY
"So has your homeland won many medals?"

TO CHINESE LOOKING PERSON
"Are you going to the Olympics?" (Make sure they are Chinese looking, not Japanese looking etc)

TO SOMEONE WHOSE SURNAME IS "RICE"
"So are you related to Stephanie Rice?"

TO SOMEONE WHO HAS JUST COMPETED IN A NORMAL SPORTS EVENT
"You should be in the Olmypics"

Weekend Action

Yet another thoroughly enjoyable weekend. Here's how it went down.

SATURDAY
Took Isaac for a coffee and wander @ Eastland while Tara had a much deserved sleep-in. Came home and prepared for Elijah's 1st birthday. People started arriving at 2:30pm and soon our house was chockas. Here's some pics.











At night we cleaned up the mess, then sat down and watched "Be Kind Rewind" (see review below)

SUNDAY
Church first up- great service. Came home after this and watched some Olympics, then the Crows game, then more Olympics. Spent approx 7hrs on the couch I think.

Top weekend!

Be Kind Rewind

Walked around the video store for quite a while Saturday and was unable to find anything I wanted to see that was in stock. After 20min of frustration I asked at the counter if they had any copies of "Be Kind Rewind" just back in. Luckily they did, and we were set for a much needed DVD night. Here's my IMDB.com review.

"Be Kind Rewind" tells the story of Mike (Mos Def) who's been left in charge of Mr Fletcher's (Danny Glover) struggling video store while he goes on a trip. Mr Fletcher only gives Mike one instruction- to make sure Jerry (Jack Black) doesn't get involved. After a mishap at the local power station, Jerry gets a massive electric shock and gets magnetized, so badly that when he enters the store his magnetism wipes out all the info on every video cassette in the store. When one of Mr Fletcher's close friends comes in after a copy of "Ghostbusters", Mike, in an attempt to save face, decides to record his own version over the now blank original. Hilarity ensues. The potential disaster turns into a stroke of genius and soon everyone in town wants a "Mike and Jerry" remake. Things are looking up for everyone until they discover a major copyright infringement is being broken and they must stop what they're doing.

Will they win over the Government? Will they hatch an even better plan? See it to find out?

Funny in spots, easily watchable, but not overly gripping or hilarious. It was pleasant. Some of the remake stuff is great, and Jack Black has his moments , but just ok.

The Olympics Are Here

So the Olympics began Friday night. Here's my Olympic experience thus far.

FRIDAY NIGHT
Sat down for the first 20 minutes or so and watched the start of the Opening Ceremony. Pretty impressive, especially the drum stuff with the lights. Not so impressive was Sonia Kruger's commentary. My favourite line was this....

MAN COMMENTATOR: And there's 2008 drums
KRUGER: And that's NOT a coincidence.

The performances after were pretty impressive, especially the painting. They covered China's rich history, but no tribute to Tianemen Square or Beef in Black Bean Sauce, which seemed a tad remiss.

SATURDAY
Watched the Opals game in the morning. Decent enough to watch, we have some alright players eg Penny, LJ and Harrower. Didn't catch much more other than a little swimming.

SUNDAY
Super-pumped to watch the Boomers game later that day, only problem being that I wasn't sure when it was on. After doing some research I discovered it was due to start at 10pm. 1hr later and I'd caught some swimming and gymnastics, but no hoops. 11:15pm and still no action. Decided to set the timer and go to bed. Put the radio on in bed and found out there was 5min left and the Boomers were down by about 20. Great. In the morning when I checked the recording it seems they tried to trick people into believing they were crossing live, except they were about 30mins behind. I sure am cross at Channel 7.

FYI

In light of the recent Lebron announcement that he'd consider playing in Europe if offered around $50 million a year.....

A person close to James said Tuesday that the Cavaliers' superstar would strongly consider playing overseas if he was offered a salary of "around $50 million a year."

I'd also like to make a statement........

I, Paul Force, would consider moving to the US or Canada if I am offered a job as....

-A talk show host
-Head of a corporation eg GE, American Airlines or Coca-Cola, or even a bank
-GM of a basketball team (America only)
-Movie producer
-Manager of an IHOP or Tim Horton's restaurant (Canada only)
-Sports writer (US only)

Boomers v Redeem Team

So I sat down last night and watched the much hyped Boomers v Dream Team game. Here's some thoughts.

-The game seemed to have that video game mode on where it shows just about every replay. Problem was that this caused the viewer to miss about 20pts of the action. Slightly annoying.
-The direction was just awful. On several plays you didn't even get to see the bucket due to the zoom being in too close on another player. Add to that the regular glitches and it was a tad annoying.
-One really good thing about having the basketball in Beijing is that I bet there won't be any scoring mistakes (you know, because of the maths-genuises thing and communism.

Was an enjoyable game though and the Aussies played really well, especially considering Bogan didn't play. The Americans were very sloppy with the ball and need to realise you can't try showtime all the time these days. Looking at the team, it's clear they are way ahead of the original Dream Team though. Much more explosive players, plus they don't have 2 guys who were essentially in retirement. The most impressive were Wade, Kobe and Lebron while Deron,Kidd and Howard didn't give much.

Here's how I went with my pre-game predictions...........

CJ and Patty Mills will hold their own.
Got this right. CJ looked really solid and comfortable, except when guarding Kobe, and Patty Mills was explosive. A nice upgrade over Shane Heal (minus the streaky 3 shooting). More than held their own against Kidd, Deron and CP3.

Kobe and Lebron will destroy us
Correct again, although this wasn't genius work. Were the 2nd and 3rd leading scorers, with Lebron having an all-round dominant game. D Wade was the nice surprise. Looked super fit and hit some tough baskets.

Bogut will get into foul trouble
Um, he didn't play, so......

Matt Nielsen (pictured) will get dunked on big time
This happened, but at least he goes for it I guess. Plagued by foul trouble all night.

Anstey will start well, but fade as the game continues
Wrong. Actually improved as the game went on and contributed at both ends of the floor, plus nearly started a big fight.

David Barlow will hit some early 3's, then also fade
Wrong. Hit 2 nice 3's in the 3rd to get us back into the game. Got better as the game went on and made some nice moves to the basket at times too.

Joe Ingles and Brad Newley will show they've still got a fair way to go until they're NBA ready
Jingles didn't get much of a go but Newley actually played quite well. Hit some nice shots and made some athletic plays. D was ok but needs work.

***Side Note: Any time athletes come into your country with face masks on, it's not a good sign about your alleged improving standards of living.

Predictions

In just over two and a half hours the Australia Post Boomers go head to head with the US Dream Team. Here's some predictions.

-CJ and Patty Mills will hold their own.
-Kobe and Lebron will destroy us
-Bogut will get into foul trouble
-Matt Nielsen (pictured) will get dunked on big time
-Anstey will start well, but fade as the game continues
-David Barlow will hit some early 3's, then also fade
-Joe Ingles and Brad Newley will show they've still got a fair way to go until they're NBA ready

These USA v Australia games are probably my favourite to watch as you have a link to a team, plus are watching some of the best players ever. Should be a great night in.

Family Times

Had the brother and sister-in-law over for the weekend. Here's a diary of our full-on weekend.

FRIDAY
Picked them up from Avalon, then headed to Camberwell station where Tara picked up Honi, and Grant and I got on the train to go to the G. Sadly our train was 17 minutes late, due to a "punch-on" at the Surrey Hills station. The guy on the voiceover kept laughing when he described why there was a delay.

Got to the game about 15 minutes in and the Hawks were up 4 goals to 1 and Buddy was lining up for his 3rd goal. Buddy is the most captivating, attention-demanding football player I've ever seen live, and I've seen the likes of Tony Modra, Andrew McLeod and Matthew Kluzek live, so that's saying something. Was an enjoyable game as the Pies lost, Hawthorn (my team before the Crows entered the AFL) won,wasn't sitting with jerks and Buddy kicked a bag.

SATURDAY
Had one of Tara's famous pancake breakfasts and the best homemade coffee in recent memory. In the arvo the girls hit the shops, while Grant and i went for a drive with the kids, then came home to watch the Crows game. The boys played well and it was good to see the likes of Moran and VanBerlo in the best players. Not so good was seeing Porplyzia get concussed.

At night we headed to Lygon St for some greek cuisine. We went the banquet and it ruled the world. I think i counted 18 dishes that were brought out to us. It doesn't get any better than the combination of good food, good people and good conversation.

SUNDAY
Church in the morning, then home to watch about 5 hours of footy while the girls shopped. At night drove the guys back to the airport.

Great weekend.