How To Create An Oscar Script

It may seem a bit silly, but this short does illustrate that film clichés are still here.

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever -- powered by Cracked.com

Monday Jukebox Ponders Toshi Kubota and aging

I don’t know what it is about Toshinobu Kubota, but for some reason I’m a bit of lightning rod for his 1980s OTT performances and videos on YouTube. I certainly enjoy them, and feel free to keep sending me the links, but now that I’m on the other side of 30, I really get how long ago this all was.

One could say, It’s BAD

Personally, I’m rather impressed by his backup singers.

And it’s a damn shame Toshi & The Gap Band never collaborated, he probably could do a killer version of Burn Rubber On Me. (Yes, Kickin’ back is a cover.)

Eh?

Gain Healthcare, lose abortion?

Tuesday Jukebox a Go-Go

I always thought that AI was well-suited for Go-Go music, but Namie Amuro too? Yes, indeed.

This is their new collaboration FAKE, not too shabby.

Kerri-Anne: Subversive Morning Television?

One of the upsides of my work schedule down here is that I do get to watch Kerri-Anne in the morning.

She is the archetypical lady-who-lunches/Liberal Party voter.

I am not.

Yet, what makes the show work for me is that you get the impression that she is basically just trying to entertain herself before she can hit the champagne down by Sydney Harbour.

To put it bluntly, she don’t care, and it’s television gold.

Here she gets then-Workplace Relations minister Joe Hockey to act like Shrek.

 

KAK and drag racing don’t mix.

 

It’s not quite the booze-and-whinge fest that is the last hour of the Today Show(US)*, but it certainly is entertaining.

* Seven doesn’t know what they’re missing by not airing that.

The March Video Log

The first proper video log from down under. Topics covered:

• I have no rhythm, and I’m not lying.
• Commercial television
• Is television Australia's dirty little secret?

‘Twould be more, but midday Sydney heat and me don’t agree.

Eurovision 2010: Bosnia Joins in the Nostalgija

Bosnia-Herzegovina debuted their entry yesterday. The song could best be described as Balkan Rock, the likes of which we have seen last year from Macedonia, this year from Macedonia, and way way way way back in 1974 when Bosnia was part of Yugoslavia, except that was also witty and progressive (and Serbian).

Mind you, in style, it’s pretty much Finland’s 2007 entry or Iceland’s 2007 entry.  (Why oh why didn’t they aim to nick Finland 2008?)

At least he’s good looking and can move.

 

And here is Yugoslavia’s 1974 entry just to balance things out:

Fierce NZ!

As much as NZ is the butt of Aussie jokes, one must admit they are much more inclusive when it comes to Queer representation.

This performance on TV3 (NZ)'s Sunrise was to promo the Aroha festival, which concluded last week.

Fa'afafine duo gear up for Aroha Festival - Sunrise - Video - 3 News


Posted using ShareThis

Meanwhile all Mardi Gras seems to yield is a bunch of giggles from presenters.

Unexpected Oz

Some more photographs that show the uniqueness of modern-day Australia.

On the road to Southern NSW:

While I’ve posted this before, I still think this is the sign of a decade:

 

A nice break from the onslaught of Retrovision this year.

Unexpected Sydney

Mr. Mary's Placard
Originally uploaded by hikarueast

My local in Sydney is probably one of the most unexpected gay bars in all Sydney.

And it's in Redfern.

Eurovision 2010: You Wouldn’t Think We’re in the 21st Century

Right now, I am watching the Rabbitohs get slaughtered by the Roosters in their opening game, and it ain’t pretty.

Serbia on the other hand has chosen a very pretty boy (in contrast to the sirens, including marijia lang and their dirges) with a very pretty folk song, clearly geared to scoop the votes that went for Moldova last year.

 

Germany has taken note of Gabriela Climi (shout out to Oz!) and Amy Winehouse (shout out to Narcotics Anonymous!) and actually picked a song that could be seen on present day charts. It’s not terribly remarkable, but at least it’s modern.

 

Following the lead of its fellow Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden is going s-l-o-w and simple. This Is My Life is livelier than the Norwegian entry, but misses the comical dramatics of the Danish entry.

 

The last time Flanders went to Eurosong-land, they had a quirky nonsense song in a nonsense language. This time they have some Ronan Keating-esque dross sung by a whinging Idol cast-off about him and his sodding guitar. Denmark did the same last year. The UK did the same some time back, and the Dutch did it even earlier. Come back Kate Ryan, PLEASE!

 

Speaking of the UK, it’s one of the few countries who could benefit from digging in Eurovisions past, and they have pretty much done that. Pete Waterman arguably is the father of the Swedish-pop sound which has pretty much been on the charts nonstop since 1999. That Sounds Good To Me might remind a lot of Don’t Play That Song Again, but perhaps in 2010, it might get a better reception than in 2000. (Josh’s nerves notwithstanding.)

 

Shockingly Greece might actually sing in Greek this year, and while OPA might be sung in the standard “More Greek than Ouzo in Athens” style, the fact that it’s actually in Greek makes it really stand out. I’m going to get a bit controversial here, but it’s like a really testosterone-driven Greek-folk answer to Superstar (complete with male dancers in body-hugging outfits).

 

Now onto Spain. I never quite know what to make out of Spain ever since they’ve decided to rely on MySpace to come up with their entry, but after Soraya’s cruel result on the scoreboard last year, and the inanity of Rodolfo, we have Daniel Diges. What can I say about Daniel? Well, he certainly is not adverse to being photographed in nothing but briefs (aiming for the DNA magazine vote), but his song and performance!

It’s pretty damn bizarre: take the wackiness of Bosnia-Herzegovina 2008, and add on De Oude Muzikant (same writer as this year’s Dutch entry) sung in Spanish.

 

Croatia has picked former Bosnian entrants Feminnem to fly their flag in Oslo. Last time they were at Eurovision they had a catchy shout-out to former Eurovision entrants, this time they are telling us that everything is easy. So easy as to be near comatose. In other words, it’s pretty much every dull Croatian entry since Severina apparently used up all of the Croatian reserves of upbeat music. (Oh well, at least they are nicking their own lot.)

Not even a very random dance break livens this up, but they are at least excellent vocally.

 

Ever since realising that Eurosong-land wasn’t keen on their soft-core porn ballads and preview videos, Bulgaria has had more success going the quirky route (be it percussion and screaming or male operatic screaming). This year they have opted for a really shiny looking man singing another knock off of Romania’s 2006 entry.  I think it’s a fair bet that the choreography will be more than just Miro sitting down and singing. At least I hope so.

 

Belarus has generally been playing follow the (Russian) leader at Eurovision, fortunately they aren’t this year. No, this year, they are taking the 2 men + 1 woman line-up from Macedonia’s 2008 entry and singing a less operatic version of Azerbaijan’s 2008 entry.

Be happy they are at least ripping off entries from the past two years, and the singers’ English is comprehensible. (Remember this was the first Belarusian entry.)

 

Cyprus, poor Cyprus. They just don’t know what to do at Eurovision now. After having some brother & sister warble about butterflies last year, now they have some Welshman doing a musical therapy session with Spring as a metaphor.

I just made the song sound inherently more interesting than it really is, because basically it’s another knock off of Denmark’s 2009 entry as performed by a John Mayer wannabe. (Just play Monika, Cyprus’s excellent Eurovision debut, and you’ll resist the urge to kick in your screen.)

 

Estonia & Latvia used to be rivals for the quirky Eurovision entry stakes, until Latvia pretty much decided that they will be weird at all costs. Now Estonia has decided to go the serious, artistic route, and while it paid dividends last years, I don’t think Siren (which really comes across as a very cold version of last year’s Lithuanian entry…in comprehensible English crossed with a b-side from an old Cure single) is going to do the same.

Malta pretty much has been sending the same song every year (save for 2002, 2007, and 2008): It’s a woman singing a Disney-esque ballad. Mind you, we’re in a post-Susan Boyle world, and this old hat might work now.

 

From one dull ballad to another, Georgia now. Georgia had a kickass debut with Sopho and the avant-garde Visionary Dream. They followed that with Diana Gurtskaya’s screeching ballad about peace. After sitting last year out (killjoy EBU), they bounce back with a dull ballad by a young woman called Sofie or Sofia and a song called Shine. She can sing, and manages not to be upstaged by the pantomime act and pyrotechnics going on around her. She also manages to perform a bland version of Hungary’s 2008 entry.

 

Armenia closes this post out. They are going to be represented by Eva Rivas and the song Apricot Stone. It’s pretty much the classic “let’s put folk instruments over English lyrics that talk about motherland…a lot” (aka VOTE FOR US DIASPORA!), which Armenia has sent pretty much every year save for their debut. I never thought I’d wish for Qele Qele part 2, but compared to this engineered-for-maximum-saccharine song, I do.

 

The Eurovision rumour mill has it that France is going to go upbeat this year because the head of the French Eurovision team is eager to have a danceable song.

GRACE A DIEU SVP!!!

Mind you the title looks like it could be Allez! Ola! Ole! and the performer’s name is Jessy Matador, so it could be a big fromage-fest

Eurovision 2010: Keep Going Anti-Clockwise

Russia has also jumped on the retro bandwagon with the internet celebrity Peter Nalitch and his “friends” representing Russia in Oslo with the song Lost & Forgotten. The song could best be described as fulfilling every single cliché that most of the Western world would have of a Russian Eurovision entry.*

* despite the fact that Russia has pretty much avoided musical cliché since 2000.

With hope this dross will be lost and forgotten.

 

Couldn’t they just recycle t.A.T.u, Serebro or if they must go folk, then La Kirkorov?

Meanwhile, Moldova’s entry Run Away recycles a song title from 2002’s Estonian/Swedish entry and song and performance from Romania’s 2005 & 2006 entries, or Iceland’s 2008 entry. Take your pick, but the entry recalls so much from earlier Eurovision contests that it’s actually kind of…original.

 

The Moldovans’ neighbours, Romania also raid the Eurovision cupboard and come up with a catchy fusion of Slovenia’s 2001 entry, the UK’s 1977 entry, and well…their own 2005 entry. The end result is Playing with Fire, which pretty much outdoes the Moldovan entry at its own game. (It also is the first Romanian entry that I really like.)

 

The Slovaks have shockingly gone upbeat, which they have never properly done before on the Eurosong Stage. It may be original to them, but I keep expecting Kristina and her male dancers to break out whips and do a jig like Ruslana did.

 

Latvia goes for avant-garde theatrical staging to a song which would certainly fit in any midlevel theatre festival. In other words, they took the mind-numbingly dull Polish ballads from 2008-09 and added the staging from Macedonia 2004 or Bosnia-Herzegovina 2006. What for? is a misstep after last year’s pleasantly manic Latvian entry.

 

Portugal goes for a power ballad, a formula which has never really hurt them recently (2008, 2009), and Há dias assim does sound like the Portuguese version of Poland’s spectacular 1994 debut or Switzerland’s 1988 win.

I don’t quite know what to make out Lithuania’s entry East European Funk, it’s more ska than funk, with a sly political edge to it. It’s almost like a mature version of the Lithuanian 2006 entry, or a defanged version of the brilliant-but-banned Georgia 2009 (which actually has a funk beat in it).

 

Really holding out hope for the UK now.

Eurovision 2010: More Retro-vision

It’s inevitable in any Eurovision year that there are former contestants returning to either: a) reclaim past glory or b) outdo their previous score.

Well, this year, it seems that Ireland (which hasn’t repeated an entrant since Johnny Logan’s second win in 1987) is doing option A, with 1993 winner Niamh Kavanaugh flying the Irish flag with a song entitled It’s for you.

Personally, I think her 1993 effort (even if Ruth Jacott/the Netherlands were the true winners, in my humble opinion) is the better of the two entries. I wonder if some of these entrants realise that present-day Eurovision scores are not entirely jury-based.

Here’s this year’s Irish entry:

 

And here’s Ruth Jacott & Co. doing their best back in 1993 despite blinding lights (blame RTE), dodgy sound (blame RTE), and a peculiar set design (again, blame RTE).

 

The UK entry is decided on tomorrow, and for no other reason than to warn them off of doing a retread of the past, here’s the British entry from 1966:

 

And guess what? The big show’s presenters have been named: it’s Haddy, Nadia, and Erik. I think I’ll work with the acronym of HEN, although only HE will do the opening and interval chit chat, while ickle N will do the real heavy lifting: the scoreboard. Alas, I don’t think we’ll have any comedy a la Ingvild Bryn this time, and this lot seem to be stuck in the early 1990s as well.

Wednesday Jukebox says Jealous? This is not a game

What happens when you take Lady Gaga’s approach to celebrity image, add in R&B, and relatively hazy bio? JASMINE, apparently.

Debuting last year with two relatively bland ballads (saved mostly by her outfits), her 2010 output has fortunately been upbeat. This is her latest: Jealous (which apparently involves her standing totally still)

 

And just earlier this year she released This is not a game (the lyrics are pretty much “i need a shag” hence the pole dancers and fetish outfit…the merry-go-round, however is beyond me)

Tuesday Jukebox is a butterfly

Well it is March, so it does seem appropriate (at least in the Northern Hemisphere sense) to feature a song called Butterfly City.

Now, I have never paid much attention to the Yakuza series of games, but apparently they’re a bit like Grand Theft Auto: Japan, which explains why the song seems like techno-gangsta rap.

Is there a connection between Gen-X & Koalas?

For no other reason than I just found this a funny trip down nostalgia lane, here are two articles (c. 2001- 2002) from a site called Progressive Boink that compare and contrast two stalwarts of Nick Jr.’s old lineup: The Noozles and The Adventures of the Little Koala.

Dripping in classic Gen-X ironic detachment, the first article compares and contrasts the two shows*, while the second focuses in on The Noozles and the show’s trippy comment on police states.

* I actually quite liked David the Gnome, though Maya the Bee worked my preteen nerves.

It would only be fair to close out this nostalgic trip down Cartoon Koala Lane with some opening sequences.

The syrupy sweet original Japanese opening to The Adventures of the Little Koala:

 

The equally sacchrine (and slightly aggrivating) opening to the English dubbed version of The Noozles:

 

Surprisingly, Australia got into the animated Koala TV cartoon game late (1993), despite having the original Koala-as-children’s character, Blinky Bill:

Eurovision 2010: Turkey Gives A Glimmer of Hope

Although it could be argued that Turkey going the rock route is playing it safe (see 2004, and the really excellent 2008 entry), We could be the same performed by maNga is at least not another “watch me shake my belly and bum” song (see 2009, 2007, 2003)*.

 

*I’m not counting 2006 because it at least was a refreshing twist on that theme, instead of watch me (or my female dancers) shake my belly and bum, it’s watch my male dancers shake their bums and thrush their crotches at lightning speed. Yes, I’m biased.

 

And 2005 doesn’t count because despite the cheeky title (to Anglophone ears), it’s relatively free of bare skin…and awfully wholesome.

The Devils from Down Under

Now here’s an interesting critique: Live Performance Australia is complaining that an SBS documentary is “an error in judgement.”

The reason why? Well, the documentary in question, Angels in New York, follows the two Australian creators behind the musical Angels who fly to New York, flanked by a film crew, audition 1500 actors, and hire crew even though they don’t have one bit of the $16 million needed to put the show on.

Live Performance’s complaint is that the doco makes Australian theatre production and producers look bad. Via The Australian:

Australian productions and producers have fought really hard to win the respect of American producers and investors. America is the home of the musical and we're reliant on the flow of productions and funds to create musicals here. Why a government-funded authority would support a program that inadvertently undermines our industry and focuses on negative aspects of it when there are so many positive stories to be told (escapes me)…If a group of American producers came to Australia and replicated what I've seen on TV so far, Australia's musical theatre industry would be up in arms.

Meanwhile, SBS gives a very good “let them eat cake” response:

It's not our job to judge whether those dreams are realistic…They [The creators of Angels] attracted the work of some good people in New York and good luck to them.

The documentary is part of SBS’s Secrets and Lies series.

Aunty Bites Back

It’s Mark versus Mark, as in Mark Day (whose op-ed piece in The Australian I commented on yesterday) versus Mark Scott (head of The ABC).

This time it’s Aunty’s turn and Mark Scott lets rip on ABC News’s website at Day’s suggestion that the ABC be flogged off. 

Some highlights:

Mr Day's assertion that the ABC should be weakened or destroyed to prevent it causing "havoc" among commercial rivals, ignores the fact that the US is the media sector where "legacy" companies are most at threat - and the US does not have a major television public broadcaster like the ABC or the BBC. Monday's edition of The New York Times reports savage cost cutting in the news divisions of American's television networks - even though the public broadcaster offers effectively no news service there at all…

…Those eager to draw a parallel between the ABC and the BBC are ignoring the glaring distinctions that exist in relation to their history, economics and role in society.

The BBC began as the monopoly provider of broadcasting services in the UK and remained so for decades…Australia, by comparison, has always had a mixed environment of commercial and public broadcasters and the ABC's role in that space has always been clear.

…The areas that the BBC is speculated to be withdrawing from are activities that the ABC is not involved in, does not receive specific funding for or is the sole free provider. Mr Day would appear to be attempting to import a "solution" to a very British problem.

Burn.

In defence of the Public Broadcaster

Yesterday’s Australian featured a very interesting opinion piece by Mark Day, which asked what exact role does the ABC as taxpayer-funded media serve in this modern multi-platform digital age. Does the fracturing of media by the internet and the rise of pay television make Aunty an anachronism?

Day makes some very worthy arguments, particularly when pointing out that under Mark Scott, the ABC is getting more aggressive in pursuing new media at the taxpayer’s expense (mind you, given how incestuous the commercial landscape is, it almost seems like a fair match).

Yet, I think there is and always will be a place for the ABC, although my belief stems from the fact that I believe wholeheartedly in public broadcasting (as in taxpayer funded, not the weird charity case that is the PBS system in the US.)

I haven’t lived in Australia long enough to have a strong emotional attachment to Aunty, but bloody hell, it’s pretty damn apparent that Aunty works very hard and very long. The ABC defines Australia like a state broadcaster should, and it also seems to have no problem being redefined by the public it serves.

There is no real state broadcaster in the US (at least not one within its borders—and the external one is a bit of dull dishrag, given that it’s prohibited from broadcasting to Americans), and at least at this moment in time, there really isn’t a need for one. Americans pretty much have long since come to the conclusion that commercial broadcasting would define us ever since Lucy & Desi started hawking cigarettes without breaking character, probably much earlier.

What we did in the US instead was market the living daylights out of our media both domestically and internationally (thank you WWII). The funny thing about the majority of American media, however, is that it’s inward facing: it’s American lives, having American dilemmas, in a world that is mostly devoid of influences from other outside nations, except for Canada, Mexico, and the UK on occasion.

And surprisingly such inward, navel-gazing entertainment sells overseas! (Again, thank you WWII.) It’s a constant surprise to me that commercial television stations all over the world lap up some of the dregs that US television spits out. Yet, that’s the role that the US media has always desired to have on the global market since well WWII, as the top supplier of filler.

The problem is that, like junk food, we fill you up way too much and you start thinking that you make us your whole diet, which is a grave mistake.

This is where a public broadcaster like the ABC comes in. The ABC doesn’t care about whether it’s cool amongst the 18-35 crowd, it just is. It stands apart from Sevens, Nines, and Tens, because it is defiantly Australian 24/7, or at least attempts to. (Everything ITV touches ain’t gold, Aunty.) I can’t say the same about Nine’s digital channel, GO!, which is constant American cartoons and vintage sitcoms.

This may sound shocking to some, but television plays a significant role in our sense of identity, and it is joined by the other new media which have popped up since its creation.

You would be hard pressed to find any country out there who would contract out its identity to another one who, to be blunt, sees no further than the tip of its nose.