Coming Soon: Balibo

I first heard early last year that Robert Connolly (The Bank) was doing a film starring Anthony La Paglia on the Balibo Five story. Immediately I had a feeling this could be a good Australian film - I mean really good - Lantana good; maybe Gallipoli good.

The trailer for the film came out a couple weeks ago, and I have to say it looks great. Too many Australian films look like they were made for bugger all, and even the "expensive ones" still look like they cost less than $5 million. This one looks like some money has been spent, and my high hopes remain.

It won't be a fun film - I don't see much hope for a happy ending. But if it is done well, this could be really worth seeing.

A Song a Year: 1991, That Ain't Bad

It's easy in this post Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time world we now inhabit, to think back to 1991 and ponder, ah yes that was the year Nevermind came out, oh how glorious it was to listen to the mosh pit wonder of sweaty druggie shirt excess that was "Smells Like Teen Spirit". And yet, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" really only hit the Australian scene right at the end of 1991. Nevermind entered the Aussie charts in November, and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" entered the charts at the end of December before peaking at the somewhat unamazing place of Number 5 in March of 1992.

So, much as it is a song that reverberates in my mind when I think back to my largely not misspent-enough youthy days at university, it isn't a song of the year for me. Nope, in 1991 there were other much more resonant songs for me.

Another song that came out in November of that year, U2's "The Fly" had a pretty big impact - massive U2 fan that I am. But that wasn't it. Neither was Julee Cruise's "Falling" from Twin Peaks, even though for at least the first 6 months of 1991 that was the show to be known to be watching (ok, bugger all of it made sense, but you just had to watch it because it was bizarre, sexy, fun and well because if you didn't the other kids might not think you were cool).

But no, for me the song that year was one that didn't even get released as a single - it came out on an EP, "Tingles", an EP that sold out in Adelaide by the time it got to Number 1 - a good 3 months after I bought it. The song was "That Ain't Bad" and the band was Ratcat.

Looking back, some 18 years on (oh geez, that is a long time ago) it is easy to forget that Ratcat were a Triple J band. They were a full-on indie band that triumphed over the crap being played on commercial FM radio. Just how bad was music back then? Take a gander at the top 25 songs that year on the ARIA charts:

1. (EVERYTHING I DO) I DO IT FOR YOU - BRYAN ADAMS
2. TINGLES (EP) - RATCAT
3. GREASE MEGAMIX - OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN & JOHN TRAVOLTA
4. THE HORSES - DARYL BRAITHWAITE
5. YOU COULD BE MINE - GUNS N' ROSES
6. READ MY LIPS - MELISSA
7. MORE THAN WORDS - EXTREME
8. I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT YOU - LONDONBEAT
9. JOYRIDE - ROXETTE
10. THE SHOOP SHOOP SONG (IT'S IN HIS KISS) - CHER
11. DO THE BARTMAN - THE SIMPSONS
12. UNFORGETTABLE - NATALIE COLE WITH NAT "KING" COLE
13. I'M TOO SEXY - R.S.F. (RIGHT SAID FRED)
14. LOVE... THY WILL BE DONE - MARTIKA
15. I TOUCH MYSELF - DIVINYLS
16. RUSH - BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE II
17. FANTASY - BLACK BOX
18. RHYTHM OF MY HEART - ROD STEWART
19. RUSH RUSH - PAULA ABDUL
20. BETTER - SCREAMING JETS
21. I WANNA SEX YOU UP - COLOR ME BADD
22. ICE ICE BABY - VANILLA ICE
23. SADNESS PART 1 - ENIGMA
24. HERE I AM (COME AND TAKE ME) - UB40
25. 3AM ETERNAL - THE KLF

I mean, let's be honest, there's a fair few tracks there that would make it onto anyone's list of "Songs I'd be forced to listen to in Hell" CD. That I am here now humming "Read my lips and take dictation... if you want to wait till later/ hands of my detonator" is beside the point.

As an aside seeing "Rush", makes me think of how cool I felt when I first heard Big Audio Dynamite's other hit that year, "The Globe" and I mocked it for sampling "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash. I felt less cool when someone pointed out to me that the lead singer and guitarist of Big Audio Dynamite was Mick Jones who was also the lead singer and guitarist of The Clash. Oh well, it was nice few minutes of cred that I had.

I first heard part of "That Ain't Bad" on the bus back from Flinders University (the glorious 222 - Flinders Uni to Gepps Cross). For a good week or so I kept hearing parts of it on my walkman on the bus. It seemed to always be the song that Triple J was playing just as I turned on my walkman, or would be the song that they would play at the precise moment I would decide to listen to another station.

I only heard them name the band once, and couldn't remember if it was Ratcat or Catrat or Ratcatcher or something along those lines - either way I thought it was a totally cool name, and very quickly they were becoming my band.

You see there's something rather thrilling about being at uni and coming across a band that no one else really knows. It's why the indie rock scene is so beloved by uni students, and why they hate it when "their band" becomes popular. When you are young and trying desperately to be unique in this world, you are desperate to find something that is your own little secret; something that even if you mention to others, you will only be greeted with a blank look (so you can roll your eyes and ponder how anyone could be so behind the times). And thus you listen to Triple J, because they'll play music that Triple M or Nova will never so much as spit on.

The only problem is that by and large, a good 70-80 percent of what gets played on Triple J is total crap (was then, is now, will be in 20 years time - that's ok that's the whole point, you don't want people listening, in case they hear your music and it becomes popular). And so when you find something in that sea of unlistenable music, you cling to it as tight as you can. And so it was with me and Ratcat.

The song "That Ain't Bad" was a kind of grungy number that anticipated the sound somewhat of "The Fly" It had a great running guitar lick that was made for some excellent air-guitar moves, and an incessant drum beat that just got your head rocking back and forth. The lyrics were easy; the chorus, simple (wasn't hard to remember "you...ew..ew..eww... I love you"). It was just a great bit of pop, that because it was only being played on Triple J, was ok to listen to around uni halls - and at my boarding college a good number of times I had it blaring out of my room window across the lawns to us sitting around benches chillin' - because of course I was the only one who owned the actual tape.

And yet it didn't last. Simon Day, the lead singer was far too pretty, and the band itself didn't know whether it was a grungy indie band or the next INXS. It actually supported INXS on its Australian tour in 1991, and well the young girls then just went mad for them. They brought out their first album - Blind Love, with the very poppy single "Don't Go Now". They went Number 1, they were played on Triple M and SAFM. And well that was it really.

No more were they to be heard on Triple J, and while I did buy Blind Love, no longer did I cling to them tightly, no longer did their songs blare out from my dorm room window. Was it because they sold out? Perhaps. Was it because they were now posters on the walls of teenage girls? Maybe. Was it because they never actually wrote another decent song? Who can say.

But for a few bright early months of 1991, Ratcat were cool, and so was I for liking them before everyone else. And "That Ain't Bad" still rocks even though the unis now have students who weren't even born when it was making the charts.



And just to remind you of how bad things were musically, here's Melissa Tkautz singing "Read My Lips". Good luck getting through it all.

Newspoll: ALP 55 - LNP 45 (or My Money is on Mr Uncommitted)

Today's Newspoll showed the two party preferred had moved from 56-44 to 55-45 - or in reality, showed no movement at all, as it was well within the 3% margin of error.

The big news was that Turnbull's Net Satisfaction rating improved from the last "post utegate" poll. Well of course it did - it could hardly get any worse. His Satisfaction rating went from 25% to 31%. His Dissatisfaction rating dropped from 58% to 55%. None of this is any good. Actually, it is absolutely horrible. (But according to The Australian, this poll is Turnbull clawing his way back!)

Interestingly Rudd continues to perform well - his Satisfaction rating improved from 59% to 61%. Anything over 60% is historically among the stratosphere. To still be there over 18 months is phenomenal. The brilliant Possum over on Crikey has a "spiffy" graph showing the monthly average of PM satisfation rating. So you can see being over 60% is not a common thing - except if you are Rudd.

And while Turnbull did recover from the dark depths of the last Newspoll, he is still a long way from the surface. A good comparison is where he was post the Budget.

On May 15-17 his Satisfaction rating was 40%; Dissatisfied 42%, Uncommitted 19%. Now the figures are 31%, 55% and 14%. So his Satisfaction rating has dropped 9%, Dissatisfied has gone up 13%, and the Uncommitted has dropped 5%; which essentially means that most of those who have stopped being uncommitted have gone to being unsatisfied - not a good indicator of how he is doing with swinging voters.

But there is worse news. On the question of who should lead the Liberal Party, Turnbull came fourth. Costello got 36%, Hockey got 20%, Uncommitted got 18% and Turnbull, 16% (Abbott got 10%). Now I may not be a big fancy city statistician, but I can make this bold prediction - any party whose leader is running fourth as best candidate to lead the party behind "Mr Uncommitted" is never ever going to win an election. Everything else - every poll, every policy, every statement is irrelevant.

***

In the week that I've been away some pretty dumb commentary has been running in the press (admittedly mostly in The Australian) about what Rudd should be doing about the Rio Tinto executive Stern Hu. Most of it is linked with the fact that Rudd can speak Mandarin. Take this from Jennifer Hewitt on Saturday:

SO much for a Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister. This is more like a shouted insult direct from Beijing, understandable in any language. A Pope, a US President and many speeches later, Kevin Rudd may be well pleased with the results of his trip to Europe.

This morning she got even more over-excited:

LOSE, lose, lose.

Kevin Rudd has arrived back in Australia minus a road map on how to extricate Stern Hu or his own government from the messy unravelling of the relationship with Australia's most important trading partner. Beijing is clearly less interested in solving the problem or even limiting the fallout than it is in making a very brutal point.

...

...it's unlikely to lead to any simple or quiet back down from a crisis that has so quickly spiralled out of Australia's control and is becoming more openly politicised by the day in both countries. That won't change. The Prime Minister is facing down the opposition's hysterical demands for his immediate and public intervention. This would certainly raise the political temperature without guaranteeing any results and, given the diplomatic mess, would more likely prove quite counter-productive.

Gee I wonder who egged on the opposition's politicisation of the issue? And why should speaking Mandarin matter? Speaking English didn't help Howard get the US to charge Hicks with anything - that took 4 years...

Actually the opposition has been incredibly dumb on this issue. Take Julie Bishop on Insiders:

JULIE BISHOP: I don't think it's useful for me to speculate [on why this has happened] but there's certainly been public commentary that this is connected with the iron ore price negotiations.

There's also a lot of evidence to indicate that there is a major fracture in the relationship between Beijing and Canberra, based on the fact that there's been such a lack of information and lack of cooperation and almost to the point where Beijing is snubbing Canberra.

Now I don't think these events occur in isolation. I don't think this is just one event. I think this may well have been a build-up of concerns on the part of China about the way the Australian Government has been treating China.

We know they are deeply troubled by the Government's White Paper. We know that they were deeply insulted by Mr Rudd's raising of the human rights issues in Tibet.

It's interesting that he can raise the human rights of the Tibetans but not the human rights of an Australian citizen.

Ah Julie, never miss an opportunity to cover yourself in a blanket of idiocy. Can you believe an opposition Foreign Affairs spokesperson criticising Rudd for raising human rights?? And so she attacks Rudd for "fracturing"the relationship between Beijing and China, and yet she think calling for Rudd to pick up the phone, call the Chinese President and demand Hu be released will improve things?

Look I'm no Chinese expert, but bumping this thing up into a chest-beating, power-play exercise will not help Hu at all. China will never publicly back down to piddly little Australia. Jack the Insider reminded me of an incident in 2001 involving a US Spy plane that was forced down on the Chinese Island of Hainan. George W Bush at first was soft then he upped the ante regarding the return of the crew and the plane:

"The kind of incident we have just been through does not advance a constructive relationship between our countries," he said at the White House.

The upshot? The crew were returned only after America was forced to issue a note of apology, stating:

"Although the full picture of what transpired is still unclear, according to our information, our severely crippled aircraft made an emergency landing after following international emergency procedures. We are very sorry the entering of China's airspace and the landing did not have verbal clearance."

And the plane itself? It was thoroughly gone through by the Chinese, and shipped back to America in crates in a Russian cargo plane.

That's how China dealt with a major international incident involving military personal and a secret aircraft from the biggest superpower in the world. You think Rudd coming out and say he has rang up President Hu Jintao and demanded Hu be returned is going to work?

Look the Govenrment does need to be involved, but the opposition needs to also shut up and let diplomacy have a chance. The big words need to be said behind closed doors, not in the media.

Flick of the Week: "Death's at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals."

This week's Flick of the Week takes us with Trevor Howard from the wonderful romance of Brief Encounter to post WWII Vienna, and the classic noir thriller, The Third Man.

The Third Man, directed by Englishman Carol Reed, (yes, Carol is a man) is a stunning film. Made in 1949, from a screenplay by novelist Graham Greene, it is the greatest example of European film-noir (admittedly there's not a huge field to beat). It is also technically a film-adaptation because Greene wrote the story as a novella first so that he could then adapt a screenplay - as a novelist he felt he couldn't go straight to the screenplay.

The film stars Joseph Cotton as Holly Martins, a writer of cheap western novellas, who comes to Vienna just after the end of WWII to work for his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). He arrives just in time to see Lime's funeral, and to also find out that Lime was wanted by the police for selling diluted penicillin to the local hospitals. Martins starts to have doubts about the story of Lime's death and begins investigating while the English Major Calloway (Trevor Howard) follows him closely.

The mood of the film perfectly captures the ruined city of Vienna after the war - there is no beauty here, just buildings that seem like shells, and characters walking past rubble rather than cathedrals. But as brilliant as the photography is (it won an Academy Award for cinematography Robert Krasker), the real maker of the mood is Anton Karas' zither music. It may perhaps be a bit overused throughout, but it has the effect of immediately creating the European feel, as opposed to the standard jazz type score of American film-noir.

The pace of the film also adds to the mood - modern viewers may find it too dawdling, but it is a slow burn - the tension builds right the way through until the final great climax in the Vienna sewers.

The acting by Cotton is prefect - he plays the non-descript guy to spot-on effect. He is the hero of the film, but he is hardly a heroic type - he drinks, seems more happy with the plots of his cheap novellas than with reality, and doesn't look like he would ever get the girl. Against him is Welles, who in perhaps the smallest supporting role in film, absolutely steals the film. How he didn't get the Oscar for this is beyond me. OK, George Sanders was good in All About Eve, but come on!

The classic scene is of course that of Lime and Martins on the ferris wheel, with Lime's cuckoo-clock speech. Below is it in its entirety (excuse the Spanish subtitles).

The film was named as the best British film of all time by the British Film Institute, and oddly, came 57th in the American Film Institute's all time poll of American films. The AFI also gave it 5th place in "mystery films" - only behind, Vertigo, Chinatown, Rear Window and Laura.

It's a classic.



Previous Flicks of the Week:

Brief Encounter - David Lean

Lawrence of Arabia – Claude Reins

Casablanca – Humphrey Bogart

The Big Sleep – Howard Hawks

His Girl Friday – Cary Grant

Charade – John Williams

Schindler’s List – Liam Neeson

Love Actually – Emma Thompson

Sense and Sensibility – Ang Lee

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – Michelle Yeoh

Tomorrow Never Dies – Pierce Brosnan

The Thomas Crown Affair – Renee Russo

In the Line of Fire – Clint Eastwood

Where Eagles Dare – Richard Burton

Zulu – Stanley Baker

The Guns of Navarone – Peter Yates

Breaking Away – Dennis Quaid

The Right Stuff – Ed Harris

The Rock – Sean Connery

The Longest Day – Richard Beymer

West Side Story – Ernest Lehmann

North By Northwest - The first one.

Roger Federer - a quick note

While I was away on holidays Roger Federer won Wimbledon. Normally I would do a post on the match and etc etc. Since it is now a week ago, I won't bother, but I'll just make this one note.

Federer in getting to the semi finals of this tournament extended his semi-final streak in Grand Slams to 21 tournaments - well in excess of the best anyone else has done (Nadal once did 5 in a row). In getting to the final he also became the only player to play in all 3 Grand Slam finals this year (The Australian, French and Wimbledon).

But get this, he is also the only player to have reached the semi-finals of all three tournaments - so while he is now up to number 21 in a row, no one else this year has been able to get to 3! (Roddick is the only other player to get to two of the semis)

But get this, he is also the only player to have made the quarter-finals of each of the three Grand Slams. (Roddick, Del Porto and Djokovic are the only others to have played in 2 of them).

That is a stat that shows a man well out in front.

He lost the Australian Open in 5 sets to Nadal, in a match in which he served as poorly as he has in just about any match - his first service percentage was only 52% compared to 59% in the 2008 US Open final, 66% in the French Open and 64% in last week's Wimbledon. In the second set of the Australian Open final (which bizarrely, he won) he only served 37%!

So he wasn't that far from being on track for a Grand Slam. Not bad for a guy who many were writing off at the start of the year. (I like this from The Times after the Australian Open - There is now almost an inferiority complex when he stands next to Nadal and the flood of tears that delayed his runner-up speech almost suggested a knowledge that his truly great days are over.)

That Nadal wasn't at Wimbledon is irrelevant. They play sport -being physically able to front up is part of the game. The history of sport is littered with "if onlys". The greatest 800m runner of all-time, Wilson Kipketer, tore his calf muscle 2 months before the Sydney 2000 Olympics. He overcame it, but it robbed him of his usual finishing speed, and he came second in the final that was won in a time 4 seconds slower than his world record, and by a guy whose best time wasn't within 3 seconds of Kipketer's world record. But that's sport. (It doesn't mean though that it doesn't suck - I was in the Olympic Stadium that night, and I was shattered - Kipketer was my favourite athlete)

This September, Federer will be going for 6 US Open wins which will put him 1 ahead of Connors and Sampras (except he is the only one to win the 5 consecutively). If he does that he will have won both Wimbleon and the US Open more times than anyone else. Amazing.

So put down your glasses. He is the best ever. He talks about being able to play till he is at least 30 - so that's at least 4 more years of joy - appreciate it while you can.

AFL Power List Round 15: (Or it’s starting to get very interesting)

After 15 rounds, in the past, every side would have played every other side. That is not the case anymore – Brisbane for example hasn’t played Fremantle, but has played Geelong twice (yeah, that sounds fair).

Collingwood with games against Richmond, Sydney, Hawks and Carlton coming up, should win at least 2 of those to get the 12 wins and percentage that’ll get them home.

The Bulldogs have the easy Freo and West Coast to get them to 12.

Brisbane have Freo, Port, Kangaroos and Sydney to get 3 wins to get to 12, or the tougher tasks of Collingwood, Essendon and Bulldogs.

Adelaide have Port, Hawks, West Coast and Carlton – 2 of those gets them to 12, but they also have the Saints, Geelong and Collingwood.

Essendon need 5 wins. They have the easy Richmond. They also play West Coast and Freo, but both are at Subiaco. The other 4 games are Bulldogs, Brisbane, Saints and Hawks.

Carlton play Sydney, Kangaroos, Port and Melbourne. They may need to win all 4, because the other three are Collingwood, Geelong and Adelaide.

Hawthorn need 5 wins to get to 12. They only have one easy game – Richmond. The rest are Collingwood, Geelong, Port (AAMI), Saints, Adelaide and Essendon. They’ll need to win 4 of those, and boost their percentage. Can’t see it.

Port also need 5 wins. They play West Coast, Freo and North. If they get those 3 they’ll still need 2 from Adelaide, Hawks, Carlton and Brisbane.

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
Safe
	1	1↔	St Kilda	15-0	Had to work hard over in the West, but were never going to lose.
	2	2↔	Geelong	13-2	The Cats showed that even they are vulnerable if 7 of their best players are injured.
	3	4↑	Collingwood	10-5	The Pies nearly lost after a big lead, but just held on.
	4	3↓	Bulldogs	10-5	The Bulldogs came back from a long way, but just came up short.
Looking	good
	5	5↔	Brisbane	9-6	The Lions showed that they are good enough to beat the Geelong B side.
	6	6↔	Adelaide	10-5	In their 7 game win streak the only top 8 sides the Crows have beaten are Essendon and Carlton.
	7	7↔	Essendon	8-7	A good win in Sydney now the Bulldogs…
Need	some	wins
	8	8↔	Carlton	8-7	With Sydney, Collingwood, Kangaroos and Geelong up next, the Blues should get to 10 wins before the last 3 games of Port, Melbourne and Crows decide their fate.
	9	9↔	Hawthorn	7-8	The Hawks next 4 is Collingwood, Geelong, Port and the Saints.
	10	10↔	Port Adelaide	7-8	OK, they beat Brisbane who beat the Cats, and then they lose to Melbourne. Have fun tipping that form.
No	chance
	11	11↔	Sydney	6-9	To get to the finals they would need to win all of their remaining 7 games. They won’t.
	12	12↔	West Coast	4-11	The Eagles play 4 more time as home. .
	13	13↔	North Melbourne	4-11	“In the lead with 10 minutes to go…” how often do bad teams have that written about them followed by “but…”?
	14	15↑	Richmond	3-9	A honest loss. Now they play the kings of honest losers – North.
	15	16↑	Melbourne	3-12	Two wins on the trot?? They now face Geelong coming off two losses!
	16	14↓	Fremantle	3-12	The Fremantle team of Saturday night would have been competitive in the WAFL. Perhaps.

Taking a break

I'm having the next week and a bit off.

One of the good things about no Parliament sitting is I don't feel such a need to post everyday, and it also let's me do a lot more "culture" blogs. But I also need a bit of a break - this year I've been averaging a post every 1 1/3 days - or more than 5 posts a week, which is a lot for something that is just a hobby.

While I'm away I'll be losing sleep watching the Tour de France and the Ashes.

I'll be back around the 15th -which will actually be the first anniversary of Grog's Gamut.