An ex-police officer told me that when she was in the force a colleague attended a house which contained the decomposing remains of an elderly woman. 

The deceased had two pets: a dog and a cat. 

According to the former cop only one of the two pets was still alive when the officers arrived at the scene.  

While the canine lay dead near its owner the feline was alive and purring thanks to chomping on its human mother.  

After hearing this harrowing tale of death and people as pet food, I jokingly asked my cat whether she’d dine on me if I met the same fate as the aforementioned female. 

After demanding dinner, moving to the middle of the big couch, ignoring her new toy, sleeping and demanding more dinner she looked at me archly and slightly nodded her head.

She then yawned, and, eep, licked her lips.    

Now that my pet is currently having a catnap on her window seat and thus some distance from my innards I can take a look at why dogs are better than cats, a new book by Bradley Trevor Greive (dog lovers don’t like capitals).  

Greive’s volume, which is filled with gorgeous glossy photographs of pooches and pussy cats by Rachael Hale, is funny and enlightening, although it’s guaranteed to anger those who like to project non-feline traits onto their feline babies.  

It’s perhaps this tendency to want cats to be something they’re not which might partly explain the shocking rates of cat dumping.

According to Greive:

In the USA last year, some ten million lost and forgotten cats and dogs ended up in rescue shelters. The records tell us that stray cats are fifteen times less likely to be claimed from the shelters by their owners than dogs and are also at least 30 per cent less likely to be adopted by new owners. As a result, cats made up most of the five million abandoned pets who never found another loving home and thus, after a short and terrifying period of confusion, were euthanised via lethal injection.    

Greive contends that dogs are smart, loyal, adventurous, good companions, brave, have different personalities (as opposed to having a sociopathic/narcissistic personality disorder) and will love you no matter what.

Since Greive contends that cats train their humans it’s difficult to understand why he also thinks they’re worthy of wearing a dunce cap.

When push comes to shove (“I’m getting off the couch, Spotty”), Greive thinks cats are cute, cuddly, dumb and lethal*.

Frankly, I think those who adamantly declare themselves to be dog people or cat people are similar to religious fundamentalists.

Cats and dogs are different and that’s all good so embrace the difference, dog people and cat people. 

However, Grieve’s book made me laugh out loud and it’s beautifully put together.   

*Admission - My cat once killed a moth.

“The most famous Austrian since Hitler”

When Brüno was released in Australian cinemas it was received less than enthusiastically by a member of the Melbourne queer press.

The columnist wasn’t pleased with Sacha Baron Cohen’s turn as an Austrian gay fashionista who leaves the “superficial” world of Euro-fashion to become a superstar in LA. 

The critic suggested that although Brüno was made with a satirical purpose it wasn’t acceptable for Cohen to create such a caricature of a gay male. 

Even if it’s easy to understand why some gay men are sick of “sissies” on screen, it’s hard to believe Cohen would’ve been able to inspire the same amount of shock and awe if he was playing a Log Cabin Republican in a suit and tie. 

The point is that the animosity expressed towards the camper than a million rows of tents nineteen-year-old is just a more overt version of the negativity that’s directed towards gays all the time. 

After being fired from his role as a host on an “over-influential” show about current trends and failing to become a movie star in LA, Bruno decides that to become famous he’ll need to be straight like Tom Cruise, Kevin Spacey and John Travolta. 

In his effort to achieve heterosexuality Bruno visits a couple of ex-gay preachers, one of whom Bruno accuses of trying to hit on him while the other tells Bruno that although women are really annoying with all their whining men need them (sounds like a straight man). 

Bruno also participates in some other heterosexual-inducing activities such as a stint in the military and a swingers’ party where the sexual liberty doesn’t extend to non-heterosexual sodomy.

One of the most gloriously awkward moments in Brüno comes when the eponymous star sits around a campfire at night with some laconic males in camouflage gear. 

The silence when Bruno says that the stars in the sky make him think about all the hot men in the world goes on forever. 

While there’s no doubt parts of Brüno are staged (hopefully the part about the creepy stage parents and the mother who agrees to put her baby daughter on a diet), it’s difficult to know how Cohen got a former Palestinian minister and an ex-Mossad chief together to discuss the merits of hummus and giving the pyramids back to the Israelis.

“Don’t shoot each other, kill a Christian” he sings in the hope of achieving world peace and thus celebrity.             

The denouement featuring “Straight Dave” is hilarious and rather frightening.

Although Cohen’s brand of humour mightn’t stand up to repeated viewings Brüno was mostly very funny on the first and second viewing.     

Brüno is out now on DVD

King of California tries hard to be the kind of quirky movie cinemagoers will mention when discussing their favourite quirky movies (see Juno and Little Miss Sunshine).

It’s got an overly mature teenager who works at McDonald’s, a mentally ill father who works as a musician when he works at all, an absent mother, a dilapidated house that said adolescent and dad could get evicted from and a scheme to find some lost treasure hidden underneath a giant store.  All good and all quirky. The trouble with King of California isn’t Michael Douglas’s performance as the father with bipolar disorder or Rachel Evan Wood’s turn as the stoic daughter who supports the treasure hunting plan, but that the film seems convinced of its own idiosyncratic appeal. This gives the moderately entertaining work a smug tone that means by the time Douglas’s character hits pay dirt it’s not as inspiring or heart warming as the filmmakers hope it’ll be. The movie seems to champion the idea that the mentally ill are more imaginative and unconstrained by the sort of rules that say you don’t break into stores to dig under cement to find treasure, but in the end King of California thinks the mad aren’t meant for this world (see Redemption, Death as) and that’s not a creative idea at all.

King of California is out now on DVD

David Small touches on the effects of having a family member with a mental illness in his compelling autobiographical graphic novel, Stitches. The only image of Small’s grandmother looking content is when she’s being taken away to an asylum after trying to incinerate her husband.  Her longstanding discontent goes some way to explaining Small’s mother’s pathological inability to communicate, not to mention her anger.  Small’s mother is drawn as a sharp-featured woman whose scowl only disappears in the presence of other adults, especially a doctor’s wife she secretly adores. A strip of grey regularly darkens her features. Growing up in middle-class America in the 1950s, Small gained some maternal attention by being sickly (“And I, too, had learned a way of expressing myself wordlessly. Getting sick, that was my language”). Unfortunately for Small, his radiologist father believed frequent X-rays would cure his ills.  Not only did David have to be sick to garner moments of attention, as loveless as it was, his father possibly gave him cancer, which was then left to worsen because of his parents’ alternately miserly and wasteful ways.  Small’s book gives truth to British psychologist Olives James’s thesis that They F*** You Up (parents that is), but Small shares James’s belief in the healing powers of psychotherapy. In the acknowledgements he thanks his therapist for “…placing (him) on the road to the examined life.” It’s clear Small now draws to explore life rather than escape from it as he used to as a child.

Having never been a fan of Mickey Rourke’s acting skills and finding his recent revelations about his personal demons a tad Oprah, I was hesitant to go see The Wrestler. However, I was swayed to view it by memories of how entertaining it was to watch the WWF on Channel 10 in the 1980s. The Wrestler takes several friendly digs at the theatrical elements of wrestling and how the winner is often pre-determined. Although the re-match between “The Ayatollah” and Rourke’s character is ultimately devastating, the sight of an African-American man flourishing an Iranian flag was a hilarious reminder of the lengths the WWF used to go to get a collective “you suck, you suck” from the audience.  More than anything the movie’s a wonderful insight into what happens when you don’t know what the hell to do with your life anymore when you can’t (or shouldn’t) do the only thing you’re good at doing. Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson is a study in regret, failure, torment and confusion. He’s an “everyman” in tights who can make you cry with him even though you know the reason he’s upset is because he’s a useless father.  Marisa Tomei’s magnificent as a practical stripper who’s facing similar challenges to “The Ram”, however, it feels like she’ll be okay because she doesn’t rely on audience approval in the same way he does.  Bruce Springsteen’s theme song hasn’t been nominated for an Oscar, which can only be responded to with a “you suck, you suck”.  The Wrestler gets five stars out of five and makes Rourke a strong contender for Best Actor. 

Upon returning home from seeing The Reader the other night I went on the World Wide Web to peruse reviews of director Stephen Daldry’s film.  It’s sufficient to say that many of the reviews were less than kind to the movie, although comments threads attached to unfavourable evaluations revealed a difference in the views of critics and ordinary filmgoers.  As an (almost) obsessive fan of Daldry’s The Hours, I wasn’t disappointed with The Reader.  Adapted from Bernhard Schlink’s book of the same name, The Reader delves into questions of guilt, salvation and human nature. “What would you have done?” asks Kate Winslet’s Hanna Schmitz to a judge, and his certainity briefly slips with the recognition he can’t respond to the query. It’s a question we should all ponder, although hopefully most can consider it more deeply than Hanna. Winslet’s tram conductress/war criminal/seducer of a fifteen-year-old boy is tough, shallow, ashamed and unpleasant. Fortunately for a film that strives for moral complexity, she’s no cookie cutter Nazi who’s only all evil.  It might make some viewers angry that Winslet’s astonishing performance can make one feel twinges of sympathy for a woman who was involved in a horrendous crime and never seems to appreciate the enormity of that crime. By the end of the movie we know she’s become educated in some way but there’s no grand redemption, while what she’s become adept at might agitate those who believe engaging in that activity makes humans more ethical.  The rest of the cast is adept (although Ralph Fiennes doesn’t quite hit the mark as the older Michael), the costumes and scenery are appropriate and the music, as it was in The Hours, is evocative.  The Reader gets four out of five stars and makes Kate Winslet Best Actress.

Some Australians might’ve first become aware of Harvey Milk when a fascinating documentary* about his life and death was screened on public television years ago.  That documentary’s recently been released on DVD, presumably to supplement the biographical picture Milk. Milk’s an extraordinary look at a man whose life was cut short at the hands of a rival who was out of his depth, and, as was observed in the book The Mayor of Castro Street, “tightly wound”.  Out of the closet and seeking a new life at a time when identity politics was flourishing, Harvey (Sean Penn) lands in San Francisco with his lover (James Franco) to find that some locals aren’t so gay friendly. The astute activist understands the power of building allegiances and bringing various groups (e.g. seniors and unionists) into the fold, although he does most things with gay liberation in mind. Milk charts Harvey’s evolution into a populist politician and his relationships with the community, Mayor George Moscone, his assistants, the “gay elite” and his lovers. Unlike films that make gays saintly and non-sexual so as not to upset anxious heterosexuals, the Milk men are serious, understated, horny, camp, funny, energetic, bitchy and lots of other things. It should be noted that a recent blog post on Telegraph.co.uk argues that Milk actually “neuters” Harvey.  Sean Penn’s a revelation as Harvey and the rest of the cast is strong, although Diego Luna doesn’t get a chance to explain Jack Lira, a troubled Latino from a dire background.  Milk gets five stars out of five and leaves me hoping Penn gets to be Best Actor.

Part of a speech by Harvey Milk:

And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us’es, the us’es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.

*The documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, shows that women were much more involved in Harvey’s campaigns than is suggested in the movie.          

For many Australians the local film industry is made up of movies like Strictly Ballroom, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Australia. The documentary Not Quite Hollywood celebrates lesser known works that are regarded as “genre cinema”.

Movies that contain ample ample breasts, buckets of blood, bikie gangs, car crashes, unrealistic looking crocodiles and violent yobbos in leather form part of the “genre” genre.

Not Quite Hollywood begins with a dubious attempt to connect the re-emergent industry with the anti-war movement and second-wave feminism. It’s on safer ground when it suggests that Australia’s excessive censorship laws gave rise to a plethora of movies containing boobs, bums, willies, vulgarity and a peculiarly Australian sensibility when those laws were lifted. After it was released in 1971 Stork apparenty became the most successful home-grown effort in about fifteen years.

The influence of the film-friendly Gorton and Whitlam Governments also gets a mention (“The Government’s shelling out piles of bloody moolah for any bastard who reckons he can paint pictures, write poems or make fillums”).

Even though Not Quite Hollywood’s too long to sustain the viewer’s interest, it does contain some stunningly silly scenes from truly stupid movies such as Turkey Shoot, Razorback, The Man from Hong Kong and Barry McKenzie Holds His Own.  It also features some amusing, passionate and intermittently bitchy opinions from varied sources, including Bob Ellis (in grating “I’m so odd, clever, nasty and droll” mode) and Ozploitation fan Quentin Tarantino.

Interestingly, the film argues that “genre” exploded in the wake of the introduction of the 10BA tax incentive scheme. According to playwright David Williamson, “half the films made under 10BA weren’t released, they were that bad.”

Those who appreciate a little subtext with their cinema will be pleased to learn that Australian “genre” is deader than the victim of a crazed killer in a crap slasher flick; although there’s an attempt at the end of the documentary to claim it might enjoy a renaissance.

While there are many quotable quotes in Not Quite Hollywood, the following from Phillip Adams may well be the most memorable:

The sight of Lynda Stoner being stabbed through the left nork by a carnivorous lesbian was too much for me to take.

Not Quite Hollywood is now out on DVD.

Eddie Perfect’s currently playing Australia’s favourite cricketing bogan in Shane Warne: The Musical.  While it’s a very entertaining show, its (mostly) affectionate portrait of Warne makes one wonder if any Australian satirists are prepared to kick the boot into their subjects these days.  With that in mind, it can be reported that Casey Bennetto’s glorious Keating! The Musical can now be seen on DVD. 

Filmed in Sydney earlier this year, the show’s an enjoyable romp through an increasingly distant moment in our political history.  Highlights include audience member Cheryl Kernot going all giggly during “Heavens, Mister Evans”, Terio Serio’s wonderful take on John Howard and the freaky “Freaky” by Alexander D. 

Extras include a brief history of the show and an (shock, horror) appearance by Paul Keating.  It’s expected that the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders (coming to a psychiatrist’s office near you in a couple of years) will add the following criteria to the diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

1. Patient attends musical named after them more than three times. 

Now, I’ve heard there was a secret chord

That David played and it pleased the Lord,

But you don’t really care for music, do you?

If Leonard Cohen was a busker in Melbourne would he be dismissed as a talentless singer by Lord Mayor Robert Doyle?

Melburnians would know that the new Lord Mayor wants the city to be free of bogans and buskers who can’t hold a tune. 

At the time of writing it hadn’t been confirmed what Cr Robert Doyle plans to do about talented busking bogans.

The adept young man who was recently spotted on Swanston Street wearing clown pants and a ponytail didn’t look much like a bogan but his antics on the electric guitar would’ve warmed the heart of any fan of flannelette shirts.

It’s true that Melbourne buskers, like buskers everywhere, are everything from awful to superb to troubling and sad.

The guy playing the drum is gloriously energetic; the woman strumming her acoustic guitar and singing folk tunes is improving and the magicians in Federation Square usually put on a good show for children and adults.

These buskers may well get through to the final round of Melbourne Idol (with Cr Doyle as Kyle Sandilands), however, where does the Lord Mayor’s policy leave those who busk but have no talent and health issues?

There’s a youthful man with an intellectual disability who’s often seen in the city singing along to the music playing on his portable CD player.

He can’t sing at all, but he seems to get great pleasure from warbling.

Perhaps he also gets a sense of purpose from having a job of sorts to go to.

A failed candidate for the Lord Mayor’s role opined on PM that the “dedication” of the former Lord Mayor, John So, had made Melbourne an “inclusive and engaging, vibrant city”. 

While views on So’s legacy will differ, there’s a widespread view that Melbourne’s a culturally exciting and diverse metropolis.

The issue of whether Cr Doyle’s intentions in relation to buskers may lead to the promotion of culture at the expense of diversity remains to be seen.

At the very least Cr Doyle’s statement about “a crazy, unshaven guy playing the guitar on the corner” should be of concern to mental health advocates.

Incidentally, one of the most wonderful buskers recently witnessed in Melbourne was an old woman with long grey hair and a mouth that appeared to be largely devoid of teeth.

Her beautiful playing merited the pile of coins at her feet and the enthusiastic audience. 

A hip dude in muso attire listened to this woman for a time and then gave her the thumbs up before walking away.         

That’s Melbourne for you.

Note: I’d like to take this opportunity to wish Larvatus Prodeo readers all the best for the holiday season.     

Details are as follows:

In Brisbane, the Prodetariate will be meeting at 3.30pm at the Hotel Bravo at Brunswick Central, 455 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley;

In Sydney, Larvatus Proteans will be meeting at 4.30pm at the Warren View, 2 Stanmore Road, Enmore (Marrickville); and

In Melbourne, LP people will be meeting at 4.30pm at The Alderman, 134 Lygon Street, East Brunswick.

Note that Melbourne and Sydney are both meeting at 4.30pm, but Brisbane is at 3.30pm (still no daylight saving up there in Bligh land).

Just come along on the day if you can make it. We look forward to seeing you. Ho, ho, and, well, ho.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas and the Larvatus Prodeo team would like to invite you to have drinks on Sunday 14 December 2008 to celebrate the season.   

Details are as follows:

In Brisbane, the Prodetariate will be meeting at 3.30pm at the Hotel Bravo at Brunswick Central, 455 Brunswick Street, Fortitude Valley;

In Sydney, Larvatus Proteans will be meeting at 4.30pm at the Warren View, 2 Stanmore Road, Marrickville; and

In Melbourne, LP people will be meeting at 4.30pm at The Alderman, 134 Lygon Street, East Brunswick.

Note that Melbourne and Sydney are both meeting at 4.30pm, but Brisbane is at 3.30pm (still no daylight saving up there in Bligh land).

Just come along on the day if you can make it. We look forward to seeing you. Ho, ho, and, well, ho.

 The legs in boots without heels belong to Posh Spice

There’s an article in today’s M magazine (comes with The Sunday Age) that discusses what a woman’s choice of shoes say about her.  The article features a large photo of a female who’s on a bicycle while attired in a short dress and a pair of high heels. She rides her bike in heels, apparently. Not sure why they chose to include such a big photo of the woman in the high heels and short dress, but suffice to say she’s a heels kind of a gal:

But I am committed – I will always be a heels girl. I feel like I could run five kilometres in heels, it’s totally fine. It’s about just looking down and feeling happy – heels do that for me.

The article also features Melbourne blogger Rebekka Power, and Rebekka isn’t a high heels kind of a gal:

Heels are silly, period. They are uncomfortable, bad for my spine, misalign my pelvis…I have not read one benefit heels do for my body.

Like corsets in old England and feet binding in ancient China, heels are just another way to handicap females. When a female’s in a pair of stilettos, there is no way she can run away if she’s being attacked, or needs to get away from some form of danger or trouble.

My shoes say that I’m about as thoughtful about the impact of shoes on the health of feet as a woman who rides her bike while wearing high heels. What do your shoes say about you?

The above photos were taken at my local park. The park is a tad lacking in green grass at the moment, but still a wonderful place to spend time.  I wonder how many other people enjoy spending time in their local park on a Sunday.

The park has become an issue for the upcoming local government elections because some people want to stick some building or other in it, which would be a shame. 

Incidentally, one of the candidates for election has been giving out leaflets promising to get rid of “ugly buildings” in the area. The leaflet featured a photo of one of the “ugly buildings” the candidate thinks needs to be removed. Rather amusingly, the “ugly building” possessed a sign for a political party that wasn’t the party of the particular candidate in its yard.