Scriffles: Boys are Back. Film review. Scott Hicks new film starring Clive Owen

I think the lawnmower scene in The Boys Are Back is my favourite. 
You'll have to see the film because I'm not going to give it away.
It's so funny.
I interviewed Clive Owen once, just before he went to Hollywood. 
It was like interviewing a clam.
Yes and no answers were better than silence - try writing that up!
So when you see what he does with raw emotion on the screen as Joe Warr in The Boys are Back - it's amazing.

There's a scene on the phone when he has to break the news of his second wife's death to his son from his first marriage.
The camera is right in his face asking the big questions of him and he answers without words. Beautiful acting.
Trailer: 
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I think the only problem with this movie is that it relies a little too heavily on his performance and on the beauty of the South Australian landscape.
Maybe, the landscape is the only thing which can equal Owen's performance. 
Somehow it falls a little short because the moments of humour don't really hit the right notes. I didn't really like the casting of the children.
It's based on a true story based on a 2001 memoir by Simon Carr about raising two boys - from two different marriages - by himself.
His philosophy of child rearing: "Just say yes". It leads to what the boys call "Hog Heaven".
The thing about this movie is that it's about the experience of the majority - I think ABS statistics show that the happy nuclear family is a myth today.
Children grow up in broken families - even children in some nuclear families. 

It's worth a look - it is from the director of Shine after all.

Scriffles: Will Smith: Dream. Bendz ze universe...or let it bendz u.

Greatness exists in all of us : "this is what I believe and I'm willing to die for it ..."

There's talent but then there's skill... Skill is only developed with hours and hours and hours of working at your craft.
While the other guy's sleeping, I'm working...if we get on a treadmill together there's two possibilities: you're getting off first, or I'm going to die. It's really that simple. (LOL!) This man!

I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as it can be laid.... soon you have a wall...

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Inspired by his enthusiasm. I believe in most of what he says but for I'd need him to elaborate on this business of messing with the universe (I think mankind already does this mightily well and not so much for good ends) and this business of truth being absolute - define "truth".

Scriffles: Beauty and use-by dates.

I met up with a friend who's a new mum on the weekend.
I joked: "It's just like playing dolls again."
Tiny feet just like the baby dolls you have when you're growing up.
But when mum and daughter play those eyes light up, oblivious to the attention of everyone in the cafe, mum delights in showing off her giggling content baby.
That's beauty. Innocence really.
Sad that we take that innocence and throw it into the mix to mix it up with other motives.
Once they take that beauty and use it to evoke these emotions just to sell you laundry powder or toilet paper - it's something different.
People are in love with youth and beauty - youth has a use-by date (on the outside). Beauty doesn't.
Beside us in the cafe were two women. A young woman taking her elderly grandmother out for morning tea.
Mesmerizing beauty - and I'm not talking about the young girl's appearance. I'm talking about her heart.
They were engrossed in conversation. How wonderful! - said my friend.

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Scriffles: SPAA. Screen Producers Association of Australia conference in Sydney. What a day! What a difference!

I caught the 470 bus back to Lilleyfield in Sydney's inner west this arvo. 

I'm sitting at my sister's computer writing this post with crickets screaming outside the window.
Imagine a ceaseless, breathless scream. That's the scream I had inside from just after 5pm when the head of the ABC Kim Dalton started speaking at SPAA till dinner time.
Dinner and with my niece blowing soap bubbles, the dog dragging toys outside - who can stay angry at Kim Dalton.
I'm attending the Screen Producers of Australia Association annual conference - I joined this year.
And today I discovered that my opinion of the ABC has changed - I didn't even realise it. 
Cultural institution. Yes. But what kind of culture? And do we need the ABC to preserve Australian culture in the digital age?
Especially if it's going to make a profit off the back of public subside in the name of preserving free-to-air television in the digital age under the guise of protecting Australian culture.
So preposterous! 689 hours of Australian ABC content in the past year.
And who watched? He warned that Australian culture may become the property of telcos without proper regulation and policies.
Is it safer in the hands of the ABC?
He talks about the diversity of the ABC.
But if independent producers decided to distribute their product online, create their own channels, is that not diversity and Australian content?

The conference started yesterday on such a high note with comedian Ahn Do telling the story of his family coming to Australia as refugees.
He took his father's advice: give it a go... contribute to this great country where anything is possible... 
That's what opened this conference.
Ahn Do made us laugh and cry and he challenged producers to just do it.
I recorded it when I realised that this is a moment all Australians deserve to enjoy.
I pulled out my flip camera - I don't have a proper edit program with me so I'll try to attach video files as I can.

This is Australian culture and it's not coming out of the ABC.
But this afternoon room full of independent TV and film producers sat there without raising the hard questions - I wonder if we heard the same message??
They don't need the ABC. That's why the ABC boss is worried and asking the government for new regulations a new cultural policy.
He couched it in terms of a threat to the viability of the independent production industry - I think that's interesting considering everything else that's being said at this conference.

The first session this morning was with Brian Seth Hurst (The Opportunity Management Company) - who didn't bother turning up for a round table session I was enrolled for with three others in the afternoon.
But anyway we actually had a good chat without him. He outlined the new digital landscape of participation, giving the audience a voice, yadda-yadda...it's not new actually. It was a 101 in digital media.
Do I need to say that this session was not as well attended as Kim Dalton's session?

Mr Hurst struggled with Australian broadband...the stuff he spoke of is not possible in Australian because ... us has bad reception. ;)

He's now working with Chris Sandberg, the CEO and founder of The company P, which produced a fully interactive drama called The Truth About Marika, for Swedish TV.
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The Truth About Marika won an Emmy last year for best interactive drama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Marika

Mr Sandberg was at Mr Hurst's talk this morning and when I approached him for a brief conversation he said the TV networks don't really have a big part to play in the future digital world.
Not if they think that they are going to control the universe - or at least the digital landscape - as they control the airwaves today.
The greater proportion of content in The Truth About Marika was user generated, he said.
But this was a case where a network came to him and asked for it.

In Australia we don't have the infrastructure to do it - yet.

The Sydney Opera House program, Kids at the House, runs an annual "Little Big Shots" show.
It's an international film festival for kids. Yes. That's right. The Sydney Opera House. Not the ABC.
And they've been doing for a few years now.
Stories for kids, about kids and sometimes by kids - the by kids is important.

This weekend, my Flip video and I are babysitting. We are going out on the town (Sydney) with two kids aged four and seven.
We are going to shoot and edit video to present to their parents.
This is the start of something BIG!
I'm going to watch Disgrace now. 
Goodnight.

Scriffles: Ahn Do's baby bro wins DigiSPAA with Missing Water. Here's excerpts from Ahn's opening address to SPAA. video

Ahn Do's baby brother Khoa won the DigiSPAA contest with a true refugee story. His film is called Missing Water.

Ahn Do told the Screen Producers of Australia Association conference about the Do Family's story of how they were attacked by pirates on a horrific trip out of Vietnam on a boat.
Khoa is a former young Australian of the Year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khoa_Do  //  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1072796/
Ahn Do got a job as a lawyer in some big shot firm and then decided he'd rather do comedy and film.

Scriffles: A week in Sydney. A heatwave. A Christmas Carol with questions from a 4-year-old.

Yes, it was 40 degrees in Sydney on Sunday when I had to take a four-year-old to a party and then entertain her seven-year-old sister for a few hours.

We walked from bookshop to bookshop along Glebe Point Road - stopping in air-conditioned shops every couple of blocks.
No air, no air! And I'm not talking about Chris Brown and Jordin Sparks here.

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Apparently, it was no air even at Bondi Beach - no sea breeze. Still oppression. Maybe that's why I decided to start donating to the UNHCR's Emergency Response Team - when their volunteers stopped us along our Glebe climb.
Imagine this kind of heat but being stuck in a massive, humungous refugee camp - no home, no water, no food.
Really. With children. With old people. This is an Australian issue. We have so much space. So much area of land. This whole fear of refugees is so unacceptable.
Security is important but refusing people basic rights - that's not making our world more secure. That's just closing your eyes and pretending it will go away.
This is why I recorded Ahn Do's personal story at the Screen Producers Association of Australia conference last week.
Australians are not by nature mean - not at all. 
They overwhelmingly voted to release indigenous people from protectorates in the 1960s - they wanted them to be counted as full citizens. That counts. Overcoming selfishness and prejudice at any point is an amazing thing.
And in the 1970s, we took in Vietnamese refugees with none of this horrible mean spiritedness - do not get me started on John Howard's role in the development of this ugly character trait.
I had no truck with John Howard until 2001 - to me it doesn't really matter which party rules, it matters that they do the right thing.

It was all this stuff which made me decide to write fiction in 2001 because I started to think the only way to really move people's hearts was to tell stories that touched their hearts - it's not hard news but it's a tougher act.
Why? Because it's about reaching those hearts which have switched off the news.

There was another thing that got me thinking over the past day or so. 

I sat in a dark movie theatre watching A Christmas Carol in 3-D with the four-year-old on my knee and the seven-year-old huddled close.
As each spirit arrived, I needed to explain their presence, their meaning, and whether or not they were good or bad.
You should try this. It's an interesting trial by fire of your own understanding.

Why did Marley go "R--aaaaaaa!" at Scrooge?
Why was Marley angry?
Why was it a flame spirit?
Why did they visit the little boy?
Did Scrooge become good?
Why? Why did Marley have chains?
What's the Christmas spirit?
Where's Santa?
Is that Santa?
Where's Santa?
Do you have the Christmas spirit?

The following morning - no. The entire following day, I was rephrasing my answer and simplifying and refining answers all day.
And you know, I bet children in the 1800s didn't read A Christmas Carol because it's morally complicated - and then try explaining the Afterlife!
These kids like watching Caspar the Friendly Ghost - they don't go into what ghosts are in Caspar.
And even in something like Ruby Gloom - it's not explained. 
Isn't that odd? Well, this issue of turning a blind eye came up really strong out of the Scrooge saga.

Why was Scrooge a bad man? Why did Marley go Raa--aaa!?
Well, because he turned a blind eye to other people's suffering and he didn't care about other people.
It's not enough to be a good businessman. 
See. (YOU Liberals who don't want to change because it's too expensive to change the way we do things to protect our planet from climate change!!!!)
I reckon climate change actually started about the time Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol.
Now it's going to do something about the surplus population!
Probably this summer too.