Monday, April 30, 2012

Oh, for the love of Benji!


The world's sexiest, one-eyed, animated woman!

As I understand it, the media seems to be furious with Julia Gillard for doing something they had earlier urged her to do.

No, that doesn't make sense to me either.

The hatred and bile coming from the New Limited media I can understand but at at a loss to understand why the Age had no less than three (three!) idiotic opinion pieces on this in the paper today.

The general thrust of the Age seems to be "OMG, OMG, OMG, this could bring the Government down!!"

Mmm, let's see.

The Age has in the past said "this could bring the Government down" on the previous instances;
  • Kevin Rudd,
  • The Queensland flood subsidy,
  • The National Broadband Network,
  • Craig Thompson,
  • Kevin Rudd (again)
  • Craig Thompson (again)
  • Peter Slipper (again and again and again)
Yet, oddly enough, the Government hasn't fallen.

What to make of this, I wonder.

UPDATE

A very sage account of the whole thing here.

27 comments:

Mr E said...

I hearts me some good Mungo.....

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Mungo stands out like a beacon of gold in a field of babbling idiocy.

Melba said...

My mum tried to engage me in outraged political pro-Julia chat yesterday and I virtually cut her off saying I just can't go there anymore. I can see why people are disillusioned about politics. There are lots of other things that don't disappoint. Like chocolate or ice cream or good tv and fab books.

Anonymous said...

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

We're back to fucking leadership speculation! It's never going to end, is it?

I'm with Melba. I don't think I can do it anymore. But it's not about being disillusioned with politics. I've actually liked this parliament -- the minority government, the to-ing and fro-ing with the Greens and independents, all that. It's the way the media has collectively decided to spin this yarn about the country being in a permanent state of catastrophe (and the way it's shaped the agenda of the major parties) that's doing my nut.

I see this bullshit about "Abbott the great PM slayer" getting some traction now. For fuck's sake; how about this news media: how about one of you, I don't care which one, has a crack at simply and concisely reporting things that are actually happening? Try throwing in some policy analysis -- something that goes beyond debating whether five bullet points mentioned in a media release or by some lobbyist or commentator will hurt working families or amounts to class warfare? How about that, fuckheads?

Sorry. I just needed to get that out of my system.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

I share your pain, Alex.

BTW, haven't seen you much around these parts.

Everything OK in Alex-land?

Mr E said...

Jesus Alex,

They gave Andrew Bolt his own show!

What more do you want?

Melba said...

Alex has been hanging out at my blog.

[hint]

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

The hussy!

Anonymous said...

"The hussy!"

Guilty as charged. But to answer your question, everything's actually pretty good at the moment. I did my arm at one point, I've spent some time doing stuff for my folks (who are still trying to get work started on their house after last year's floods), and I've just come back from a trip to the great wasteland, where not even Telstra coverage dares to tread (If you wanna hear stories about how Western Queenslanders feel about council amalgamations, I've got a million); but mostly it's just because I started keeping a journal/work-log, which has led to a minor obsession over getting more done.

How goes it on planet Insertnamehere?

Mr E: They sould give Piers Akerman his own show too; get the prick away from my Sunday mornings. I envision he and Clive Palmer riding across the country on an old motorcycle, having slightly cheeky conversations with battlers about the disasterous state of affairs. They could call it "Two Fat Cunts".

And for the sake of balance they should set Annabel Crabb and David Marr up in a competing time slot. I see that one having a title along the lines "OverTalk: The only source of political analysis that even manages to turn its tag line into an unbearably-long, overly-clever and self-indulgent ramble that you wish would just make its bloody point and be done with it".

Mr E said...

Alas Alex,
If only the Australian Broadcast Media had a few Executive Producers with your kind of vision.......

Melba said...

Sorry Ramon. Didn't realise it was an exclusive arrangement.

I'm happy to share.

Anonymous said...

Mr E, I keep writing to the networks and telling them that, but they don't seem to be listening.

I think I'll just start my own internet based entertainment hub in direct competition. Once the NBN starts providing us all with cheap limitless bandwidth, I don't see how it can fail.

Of course, the real trick will be selling it to someone for a billion dollars before anyone else sees how it can fail either.

Anonymous said...

And speaking of funny decisions by television stations, I just opened up iView to see if there was anything worth grabbing this week, and lo and behold, it seems Laid is back for a second season. Wait, what? Seriously?

Oh, and Ramon, in case you weren't aware, it looks like the lovely Julia Zemiro was on the first episode of Andrew Denton's rather pissweak new gameshow.

Mr E said...

Laid is back for a second season

Hey Aunty, I how times are hard, but if it's only about the money, I'll gladly throw a few extra bucks into the hat to secure the rights to some high value content. Why re-run Laid, when for few dollars more you could get Seasion 1 of Gilligans Island?

Anonymous said...

I concur with your sentiments Mr E, but it isn't just that they've re-run Laid; they've actually made a second season. Could have knocked me over with a feather. I didn't think the first season even did that well.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Lame and embarrassing as Laid was, at least it wasn't another fecking version of Sea Change

squib said...

Oh man, I can't believe they're still showing New Tricks, Midsomer Murders, and flappers, why are there always flappers? I can't stand their stupid bobs and art deco frocks

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

At the risk of incurring EMS's wrath, Miss Fisher's Something, Something bores me to tears.

Anonymous said...

Is Flappers the actual name of a show, Squib? I don't think I've ever seen it listed.

My folks get right into New Tricks, which means I get to see it whenever they stay here. Halfway through each episode we all have to make a prediction of "whodunit" (did I mention they get right into it?). I don't reckon it's that bad. Reminds me of the days when all we got was the ABC and all the ABC ran was the BBC.

Even my folks didn't get into Sea Change.

squib said...

No, Alex, I don't like flappers in general, and Ramon is exactly right, that was the show... TACKY!

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

Yeah!

Bastard flappers!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, screw you, early beneficiaries of women's lib. Boooo!

Actually, while we've got a thread going about TV and stuff (wasn't it originally about political journalism or something?), I just thought I'd mention that I'm off to see Iron Sky this weekend. I originally mentioned this flick a year or two ago in a conversation with Mr E. See, I really, really enjoyed Star Wreck 6, the team's first feature film, which was put together over a period of seven years by a handful of Finnish blokes working from home with no budget and then released for free on the internet [download or stream]. And since there is very little going on in my life to get excited about, I've worked myself into quite a lather over the prospect of finally seeing this. I do so hope it isn't rubbish.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

How can you go wrong with a film about Nazis on the moon, Alex.

Anonymous said...

I'm very much hoping you can't.

Anonymous said...

Well, I can confidently say that if your taste in movies is anything like mine, you should definitely check out Iron Sky. However, judging from the fact that I was about the only person in the theatre, I'm also going to venture that there just aren't that many people who fall into that category. I guess that's why there's so few movies being made these days that I can really get into.

Also, the preview for Haywire looks fuckin' terrible.

Ramon Insertnamehere said...

But what was the film like, Alex?

Anonymous said...

Well, despite it being bigger and better financed than their last movie, it still had quite a low-budget/small-movie/frugal feel about it. Close to 100% of the scenery looked to me to be either computer generated or enhanced -- and not in the "I can't believe it's not real" kind of way. More in the sense that you have a "movie world" that feels completely distinct from the "real world". Sort of like Sin City or 300, only it doesn't wave it in your face and say "Hey, look how clever and arty this all is!". So really, more like The Lexx or any old movie that was noticeably shot on a sound-stage. For me, that in no way counts as a drawback (I actually think it can be a positive a lot of the time), but I know some people get turned off by it.

Structurally, the closest thing I can think to compare it to is South Park. There's no clear protagonist or designated "straight man" and everything about the story-world is designed to lampoon elements of society, politics, history and pop-culture (though mercifully it never goes anywhere near the tedious gross-out humour that South Park revels in). There's a nice sequence that pokes fun at the direction of American politics and its increasing emphasis on shallow "inspirational" rhetoric, in which the president's popularity is dramatically increased by hiring a Nazi propagandist as chief speech writer.

The score did its job but wasn't anything to rave about. The performances tended to fall somewhere between adequate and good and there was very little of that over-the-top silliness that I find repellent in comedies. There was a couple of violent sequences, a number of sexual references (though no actual sex) and a lot of profanity. And if you're one of those people who hates reading so much that you refuse to put up with subtitles, you'd better be able to understand German.

It wasn't a technical tour de force or a display of master craftsmanship or anything like that; but in terms of pure enjoyment, I give it 8.5. I smiled all through it and laughed a lot.