Fly fat ass fly!

This Christmas I knew all but one of the gifts I was receiving prior to the day - which I was kind of a little dirty about, not that I wasn't happy with what I knew was under the tree for me, but you know the odd surprise is a good thing.

But said gift that I didnt know made it all ok - a four dvd set of the "An Evening with Kevin Smith" series. For those who dont know - Kevin Smith is a fanboy film director who served up two of my all time favourite films - Clerks and Chasing Amy, and the excellent Mallrats (the title of this article is of course a line from Mallrats), Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and of course Clerks II.

The DVDs feature Kevin Smith going around colleges in the US, and then shows in London and Toronto where he basically takes questions on anything from the audience. Jay turns up in parts - where we learn his charming pick up lines "Yo you want me to get up in them guts?" and his favourite moves - Half, half, whole, swirrlllll.

But its Kevin Smith who kicks ass - delivering witty annecdotes on how he and his wife met, why Prince (as in Purple Rain) is a nutbar, why Tim Burton is an ass, what the good/obvious ending of Lord of the Rings should have been (with the added extra of Sam sucking Frodo off followed by Sam "bricking" in.... nevermind), why Mel Gibson sucks and has destroyed his career, but the best bits are Smith ribbing Affleck.

When signing copies of Dogma, Smith started writing "Is Gay" with a big arrow pointing to Affleck - Affleck found out about this and started doing the same thing (obviously with arrows pointing to Smith), so now when ever Smith gets a copy to sign where Affleck has written his bit on the cover - Smith now just writes "GIGLI" with an arrow. Touche.

But my favourite burn for Affleck was when he saw some article about himself which said how Smith and Affleck no longer get on, and he rang up Smith mildly shocked to talk about it, when Smith said "No dude I havent read it, I've been too busy dodging falling stars". BURN.

If I had a Top 5 all time present list - this would be up there.

Although now I think of that getting Tomahawk and Havoc one Christmas was bad ass, and then then all four Ninja Turtles one year rocked as well. Hmmmm may have to think over that statement a little further.

2006 was, 2007 will be?

Welcome to Blackbird Singing's innaugural annual awards (categories will be made up as I go along)

Song of the Year: This was a tough one, but in the end there was a clear winner - Blue Sky Blues from 29 by Ryan Adams. Sooo good.

Album of the Year: Lots of good stuff this year - Arctic Monkeys, Ryan Adams (x3!), even Sonic Youth's new album was outstanding, but by years end there is only one left standing - The Life Pursuit by Belle and Sebastian. Man theyre just great, and they continue to grow on me.

Newcomer of the Year: Only one candidate for me - Arctic Monkeys. They are outstanding, everything Oasis was around 1994/95.

TV Show of the Year: Again another tough one - some great new shows came on the scene - Harvey Birdman, The Daily Show (new to NZ at least), Extras, plus shows like Family Guy seemed to come of age. But the one for me is Curb Your Enthusiasm. Some people just dont get it, but I love the show - Larry is my hero! And you know deep inside Larry is lurking within you just waiting to unleash socially inept skills on everyone you know.

Movie of the Year: Lots of good stuff this year, No. 2 which I watched last week was great. An Inconvenient Truth was stunning and definitely the Political film of the year. But Little Miss Sunshine takes the cake for me simply a stunning film.

So there you have it. A pretty good year all up, I should write some great introspective piece here, but frankly im not nearly drunk enough for that!

2007 should be another great year too for sooo many reasons. A new job, with any luck Little Britain Live in Sydney, and then three weddings!

First up is Angus and Karen in Foxton (according to the welcome signs it's the Fox-town of New Zealand, Karen had her heart set on a Fox fur dress, so really there was no other option*).

The second one is very exciting (not that the others arent) - Dot and Georgia are getting Civil Unionised - which is my first Civil Union ceremony, im very excited about that! and thirdly is Misty and Michael at Wharerata in Palmerston North (the only people who took my advice on venues, so I have a vested interest in saying this will be the best one!)

So bring on 2007.

* - To any animal activists scouring the interweb for animal genocide, or other such horrors - before you get the red paint ready to throw - I am joking about the Fox fur dress!

Hallmark hookers

Normally im anti Christmas Cards - well greeting cards in general.

Why you ask? well whats the point? A whole industry has been created where you effectively have to add $5 to the price of gifts - so why not just say "merry christmas" or "happy birthday" when you hand said gift over?

The only other situation you normally use the card in is when you dont want to talk to someone, or buy a gift for someone, but feel the need to keep up that annual contact. If this is you - i ask, why not pick up the phone? Jerry Seinfeld calls greeting cards - Hallmark Hookers, you basically pay hallmark to do the job for you cause basically you can't be bothered.

Well anyway against my better judgement - I have made an exception and sent cards out this year. Tinks (Antony)- a friend of mine has made some cards that feature a piece of grafiti that he saw in Melbourne earlier this year - someone had written "Santa isnt real kids" on a wall, but someone had gone to the trouble of going back and twinking out the "nt" so it read "Santa is real kids" - isnt that great that someone would go to all that trouble? Bah well I thought so anyway, maybe im just getting too sentimental in my old age?

You can see the image here currently

What a day

Well its currently afternoon tea at the cricket - and im sunburnt! Loving that, but anyway Wellington has turned on a stunner for the first day of the test match and as they say - you can't beat Wellington on a good day!

Also Kumar Sangakara scored one of the best centuries ive seen. So all in all a good day.

What an ass

Well I did my christmas shopping today (well most of it at least), and while out and about I finally remembered to get measured up for Angus and Karen's wedding (relax theres plenty of time!)

But so readers dont embarass themselves like I did - If youre trying on clothes or getting measured up - plan this trip well - ie Dont wear socks that have holes in the end! It turns out staff at such places arent afraid to make fun of your holey socks.

In other news, I have taken tomorrow off to spend the day at the Cricket - what better way to spend a day in the sun than watch the first day of a test match?

Review: Lord Don't Slow Me Down

Well I have literally just watched the New Zealand premiere of Oasis's doco - Lord Don't Slow Me Down, as part of C4's Music Doco series - The Cut.

It's not bad and serves as a reminder of how great they were and still are - at times.

Their career to date has been bookended by great albums, my opinions on their other content is well known so there is little point going on. But what I will say is that I still feel some kind of ownership of Oasis, so when I criticise them, its almost like arguing with your family.

There is little new in the film for fans of Oasis, and the doco Live Forever is far better in terms of examining their impact, but this is still fun. There isnt the wheels falling off of the Metallica/Dandy Warhols doco kind's (usual arguments are present of course!) but what stands out for are the live snippets of the Definitely Maybe back catalogue - best album ever!

If I was reviewing any other band's doco this would get a 3/5 but this is Oasis.....

****

(PS. Note my kick ass perspex christmas trees in the photo - my first decorations for years! Oh and on another note Ive sent cards out this year - another first!)

(PPS Yes Angus just like Return of the King..... before you Angus, before you.)

Review - No.2

I have just finished watching Toa Fraser's debut feature film No. 2.

After having Sione's Wedding talked up all year as the pacific culture film to see, and being largely disapointed by it - i had put off seeing No. 2. What was I thinking?

No. 2 is the story of Nana Maria the matriarch of her large Fijian family in Mt Roskill, who is making one last attempt to pull her family back together by asking her grandchildren to put on a party for her.

Fraser captures almost perfectly the nature of extended families - long-standing unresolved arguments, general envy, brothers and sisters/aunties and uncles that just don't get on, and the grand children who all seem to be on the same level.

The performances are outstanding - the excellent Ruby Dee (Mother Sister in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing) plays Nana Maria and captures perfectly the mana of the role, not to mention hiding her New York accent to convincingly pull off a Fijian New Zealander. Taungaroa Emile (Boogie in Once Were Warriors) is also fantastic, and for me almost the entire principal cast is great.

No.2 is a warm and funny story of a divided family pulling out all the stops and getting over their petty dislikes of each other to come together for their Nana.

The film transends being just a 'pacific' story, it has a real modern day New Zealand feel to it, and is well worth checking out.

****

Bravo Bravia

In the last 12 months Sony have produced two of the best TVCs ever. (As I write this on my Sony Vaio I feel like im doing an endorsement!)

First there was the excellent "Balls" advert and at the moment they are running their new building colour explosion one. In this age of CGI I had assumed that the Balls advert has fake, but it wasn't - Sony (well their agency) actuallyfired thousands of colour balls down a street in San Francisco.

So when their new advert began, I thought - hmmm i onder if they actually fired all that paint for real? Well kids they sure did.


In total it took:

70,000 litres of paint
358 single bottle bombs
33 sextuple air cluster bombs
22 Triple hung cluster bombs
268 mortars
33 Triple Mortars
22 Double mortars
358 metres of weld
330 metres of steel pipe and
57 km of copper wire

If you havent seen the ad - check it out at bravia-advert.com

Oh I almost forgot - Lord Don't Slow Me Down!

The very excellent C4 has been running a great series of music docos of late, including the very excellent Dandy Warhols doco, and of course Metallica's "wheels fall off disaster epic".

But next week - the band who "still" claim they are the most important band in the world (hmmm not sure who they're kidding!) Oasis!

C4 are playing the brand new Lord Don't Slow Me Down on 12 December, and the following the new Beatle's doco - LOVE!

What a kick ass way to finish the TV year.

The tie and Elton

The blogger thingy hasnt worked for me this week, so this is a belated update.

Pictured is the tie mentioned below. Enough said really. Mind you as gutted as I was, its funny how other developments and events continue to put things like this in perspective.

In other news - Elton John was in town this week for his one off show, and I heard quite a funny story about this.

Now a friend and colleague of mine's teenage son works for Ruth Pretty Catering who catered for Elton. Now Elton 'required' a personal waiter for the evening......

Naturally being teenagers this guy got loads of shit from his mates for acting as this waiter - along obvious lines, but im not sure you would expect your parents to be mercilessly taking the piss, and when you drop into their work having to put up with "hey rent boy" calls from just about everyone! But said mother had the best call on this - speculating on a potential Elton quote - "Errgghh, pass us another, this one's split"

And on that bombshell ill leave you again.

Absolutely Gutted

This actually happened on Thursday, its taken me a couple of days to come down from the pain to blog about it.

Listeners may recall I paid over $200 for a tie by (in my humble opinion) one of the greatest mens designers in the world - Ozwald Boateng while I was in London last year.

Boateng (pictured) is the leading British tailor - he does wicked suits. If i had 20 000 pounds lying around, or if i won lotto id totally have him make me a suit. (thats the price for a private one on one session with him).

Well my prized tie - red, orange and yellow angled stripes has been basically destroyed.

It had a small mark on the bottom of it, so i thought I best get it dry cleaned. Stupidly thinking - theyre professionals, im sure they know what theyre doing.

The silk is now all loose, and the stitching along the back has come free, on top of this the diamond shaped fold at the bottom is now ripped.

To top this off - they stapled it back together. Who would notice a two staples holding your most designer (irreplacable in NZ) tie?

This is the VandA museum description of Ozwald which kind of sums up why im so gutted:

Acclaimed menswear designer Ozwald Boateng has successfully united the skills of British bespoke tailoring with his own distinctive approach to menswear design and forged a new appreciation of Savile Row.

Self-taught, Boateng began tailoring at the age of 16 and in 1994 became the first Savile Row tailor to show during the International Menswear Collections in Paris. In 2003 he was appointed CreativeDirector of Menswear at Givenchy further securing his dominant position on the world fashion stage.

Boateng’s attention to detail and finish are most clearly demonstrated in his superb bespoke tailoring, for which he was developed a stellar clientele, amongst them Jude Law, Jamie Foxx, Will Smith and Daniel Day Lewis.

Today Ozwald Boateng’s distinguished and award winning designs are sold and celebrated internationally and his unique approach to cut, colour and detail has created a new ‘look for men’-stylish, beautiful and sexy.