Updates & Reviews - How To Be Hero!

Wow, just realized it's been nearly a month since I have updated this. It's been a weird but busy month, I have to say. There's been a few things of note but not sure what all I'm going to mention here...think I might keep this short or just move onto some reviews I need to do. Yah, reviews sound pretty good!

A couple weeks back, I had some friends over for a movie night and we watched a selection of fun and somewhat quirky films. Among the selection were the independent film Ten Inch Hero and an odd family flick from the early 90's known as Airborne.

Now, I watched Airborne when I was just a kid in school and I loved it. It was funny, it was light hearted and it's heavily based around hockey and rollerblading...two things I love. The last 15 - 20 minutes of the film is taken up with a hardcore downhill rollerblade race between two rival teams and is probably the most entertaining part of the film to watch.

The star of the film is Shane McDermott as the teen Californian surfie, Mitchell Goosen, forced to spend 6 months in Cincinnati, Ohio with his aunt, uncle and cousin Wiley...a very dorky cousin played by a very young Seth Green. Going from sunny California to snow-locked Cincinnati is hard to begin with but he also ends up on the wrong side of the local jocks (including one named Augie, played by Jack Black) who decide to make Mitchell's life a living hell. The only thing that ends up making life a little easier for him is meeting a girl from school, Nikki. That is, until he finds out she's the sister of the head jock/meat head making his life hell.

Mitchell has to win back the girl after some stupid things said, survive his new high school, help out his dorky cousin and try to get on the good side of the jocks who hate him. Antics ensue but it all turns out in the end when the two teams go head to head on 'The Devil's Backbone' race and the jocks ask Mitchell to skate with them.

It's pretty schlocky and coated with a thick layer of 'cheese' but it's cute and fun at the same time. VERY 90's teen film. As I said, best part of the film is the race at the end, especially since all the stunts and blading effects were done by Team Rollerblade. Good film to get if you need a filler rental with some cheesy laughs and the chance to see now famous actors looking painfully young.



And then there's Ten Inch Hero.

Originally created as an independent film and never given a cinema release, this quiet little flick has a huge cult-like following and has now made it's way onto dvd release. Something well deserved because this is a well written, interesting film that seems to appeal to just about everybody.

Taking place in Santa Cruz, CA and centering around a quirky little sandwich shop, the story brings together a diverse group of interesting characters who, you eventually realize, all have a some sort of problem regarding image and perception of people. It has a lot of elements that one would find in a 'chick-flick' but the humor laced through the whole plot, and the way the different characters interact, make it a much more interesting and well rounded film.

The main plot is driven from the POV of Piper, a young woman who moves to Santa Cruz to be closer to a young girl she thinks might be the daughter she gave away for adoption. She gets a job at the sandwich shop where she meets quiet and unassuming Jen (Clea Duvall), sexy and vivacious Tish (Danneel Harris), mohawked and unorthodox Priestly (Jensen Ackles) and the mellow hippie Trucker (John Doe) who owns the shop and is secretly in love with Zo (Alice Krige). The young girl's father, Noah is played by Sean Patrick Flanery.

Friendships are made, secrets are revealed and, through it all, Priestly's mohawk color changes as often as the wacky shirts he wears. I really do recommend this as a must watch, though it may not be a film for a younger audience as there are some sexual scenes and rough language.

As a last note, I'll point out that those I have shown this film to...all with a rather wide range of movie tastes...have all said that it is one that would watch again and most likely add to their personal collections. :)

P.S. I am still VERY much in love with my new cell phone! Just FYI. :)

Midnight Ramblings

Oh, look. I managed to go several days without writing anything. I'm actually very good at going several MONTHS normally so right now I'm really wishing there was a 'sarcasm' button or some sort of emoticon. My monologues just don't come across the same without my native language to put them in. ;)

Well, Optus finally managed to get off their communal arses and find themselves with strong guidance and several maps. In other words, my phone and internet have been restored and I no longer have to resort to eating at the local McDonald's in order to get my daily fix of 'net and remain sane...sorta...maybe. Okay, so maybe sane is NOT the best word for me but it's the only one I can think of right now. Let me re-read my thesaurus and get back to you on a properly defined synonym for what goes on in my brain.

Anyway, not going to get into detail about what the final issue was but it WAS their fault. Like, duh!

I'm back to my regularly scheduled surfing and pretty much caught up on the goings-on of all and sundry, but then I do have plenty of time right this second to do that. You see, I'm sick. Again. That makes three colds/flus in the last eight months, which is more than I have had in the last 5-6 YEARS! I'm just going to blame the uber bugs out this year and go with that. No, it's not pigfluenza or any other variant. At the moment, it's just being tired, having a rough throat and a stuffed up but infinitely runny nose. (Can someone PLEASE tell me how the hell it is that we can have both at the same time? Shouldn't they be mutually exclusive?) This means a lot of time spent in bed with my laptop and cat for company.

What this also means is that I am continuing in my quest to finally watch Angel. Yes, the Joss Whedon tv series. No, I didn't really get to watch it the first time around. I was a bit busy at the time and Space channel kept airing it at weird times so I just gave it up as a lost cause. Saw one or two eps so I knew who some of the chcracters were but now I am marathoning vast tracts of the series at a time in a game of catch up. Almost done season 2 right now and I think I have already picked my fave ep. It's the one titled 'Dead End' where Lindsey McDonald gets his hand back etc. I like the story and some of the character interactions. Love seeing Kane and Boreanaz working closely together, since everyone knows they're such good friends. And I just love Chris Kane heavy eps...and bonus, he sings in it!

For me, that's a huge bonus since I have been a very long time fan of Christian Kane's music. I actually know that part of him and his talents better than I do his acting. And, yes, that is part of the impetus for me going on an Angel kick. Not only will it quiet certain friends who have been hounding me about the show for about a decade but I can finally catch up on Kane's mad acting skills. It's actually a bit odd to watch because I am also currently a big fan of Leverage so seeing the two roles at the same time is strange. Very different characters and Chris looks very different as well.

Note to anyone who actually happens to read this...watch Leverage. It's funny and it's entertaining, which are things tv shows are MEANT to be. You know, entertainment. The characters are fun and quirky and it's got a bit of a Ocean's 11/A-Team vibe to it, which means you can just enjoy it without it taking itself too seriously. The writers and creater of the series really must be comended. I mean, I have no time and the attention span of a gnat but I manage to catch this show ever single week. So, there you go. (Met Dirk Benedict from the A-Team/BSG recently. Enjoyed chatting with him, interesting guy)

Wow, just realizing this one is getting almost long in the tooth so I'm gonna wrap now and maybe try and get some sleep, if my cold will let me. If not, it'll be back to wandering the vast expanse of the internet to see what trouble I can get into. :)

PS Still loving the new phone to pieces! Best purchase I have ever made, I swear. Sad thing is, I have trouble putting it down sometimes. Will have to give blogging from it a try, shortly.

PPS I really should tell some of my mates over at LJ and what not that I have this since I haven't been posting there lately. It's just, I swear I'm scared to log on there! Love everyone there to bits but there is always SO much to read and catch up on and by the time I'm done, I REALLY don't feel like posting anything. Plus, I find this more user friendly for some strange reason. Will have to pick at my brain a bit til I can figure out why.

Optus Rant

*sigh* I am currently sitting in McDonald's (Maccas to Aussies) and using their free wifi internet in order to be able to check messages and get my daily intake of netty goodness. The reason for this little outing? Optus.

Normally, I have not had much bad to say about the illustrious phone company. From all I have heard, they are far better than Telstra in most things and we've been pretty happy with them. However, last Saturday I picked up the phone to find it had no dial tone. No buzz, no static...nothing. At first thinking it might just be a temporary fault, as does happen, we waited to see if it would come back on. No such luck. Called the fault in to be told that it looked like something had caused our phone line to literally be disconnected. WTF? We haven't changed providers or done anything to our phone of late so we were baffled.

They said they would get a technician to look at it, booked us in for Tuesday morning (no Monday???) and wished us a nice day. Fortunately, the internet seemed to be unaffected so we happily kept ourselves amussed, secure in the fact that Optus would fix everything and we had cells if we really needed to call someone.

This morning, the tech came (never saw him as it was an 'external' booking only) and then got a message saying the phone should be all fixed. No such luck. Messaged them back, they booked another tech for tomorrow morning and voila, more waiting. Only, now I go to get onto my computer and the internet? NO...LONGER...WORKS! Call into the fault line and am pretty much told there is nothing they can do until the phone line itself is fixed. *headdesk*

Um, hello? The phone that was meant to be already fixed? By the tech who did SOMETHING to now knock out our net? *sigh*

Amazing how only a couple hours without reliable internet makes me a little crazy. *twitch*

I'm hoping that all will be fixed tomorrow. In the mean time, I may actually get some cleaning done without the distraction of the computer. Go figure!

Oh, and I have now had my new cell phone for a whole day. I am really starting to get the hang of all the features, have gotten almost everything set up to my liking and have yet to find a fault with it. For most people, the main issue is the lack of external volume control but I see how they have worked it for the different settings and aplications, so it's all good. Lots of texting has already been done thanks to the so-easy-to-use Qwerty pad. So far, so good. Shall keep you posted! *laugh*

New Phone

I'm very excited because today, I have finally gotten a brand new cell phone. I always had one but it was pretty simple and out of date and the new one is very high tech. No, not an iPhone. I didn't think I needed to go quite that direction. Went with the Nokia E63 instead and so far I'm pretty happy with it. Still going to take me a little bit to get used to everything and all the new things it can do compared to the old one. Like Twitter and surfing the net from a phone!

Wanted the red one but I had to go with the black but I'm still happy with it. Go the nice and easy Qwerty pad on it. I would recommned it as a new phone to people. I'll post updates as I get more used to it and if there are any issues I find with it. :)