So I’ve purchased plane ickets to the historic first day / night Test Match Australia Vs New Zealand. The match is being played in Adelaide between 27 November and 1 December. I’m going to fly into Adelaide on the first day of the match on a Friday, attend the first 2 days and fly back on the third day of the match.
This is actually my brother’s idea and I’m really looking forward to the match. I get to visit beautiful Adelaide, see the redeveloped Adelaide Oval (which looks great), see one of the most exciting cricket nations right now in New Zealand and experience a first in the format of cricket I like the most.
Managed to score cheap flights and a good deal on accomandation. Only four more months to go!
Released: June 2015
Seen: July 2015
Cinema: Hoyts Lux (similar to Gold / Luxury Class – food service during the movie)
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Seth MacFarlane, Amanda Seyfried
Gene: Comedy
Rating: 6.5 / 10
Synopsis
Life has changed drastically for thunder buddies John (Mark Wahlberg), now a bachelor, and best pal Ted (Seth MacFarlane), now married to the woman (Jessica Barth) of his dreams. Problems arise when the couple decide to adopt a child, but the law declares Ted to be property and not a person. Angry and dejected, the lovably foulmouthed teddy bear must now seek legal help from a young lawyer (Amanda Seyfried) and a legendary, civil-rights attorney (Morgan Freeman) to get the justice he deserves.
Review (warning spoilers)
A Seth MacFarlane comedy is always going to be more base comedy with a lot of references to geek culture with body humour. Basically any movie he makes is a guys movie. So when my work’s Social Club offered discount tickets to Ted 2 I was in and taking my nephew Andrew who loves anthing Seth creates or voices.
The first Ted was a breakout success, low brow humour but also touching at times. Mila Kunis was a major reason the first movie work for me, she has great comedic acting chops and bought the heart of the movie at the end making it seems her relationship with John (Wahlberg) was something special. So it as a great shame Mila wasn’t back this time. It did open up a new story but I like sequels to keep the movie logic.
Ted 2 is still funny, especially in the second half, and there is a lot of call back to the original movie reversing scenes to great effect. I found Ted 2 a passable film, my nephew loved it so mabe it is aimed more at 20 year old male population.
The storyline is crazy but hey we started with a ‘live’ teddy bear so you just go with it. Amanda Seyfried as a pot smoking lawyer makes the most of her screen time, she is almost a male version of John but obviously way smarter to become a lawyer. Morgan Freeman has a small but very important part saving the day and getting Ted ‘human’ rights. The journey is definitely entertaining but some of the secondary characters from the first movie should have been dropped, lightning for these characters didn’t strike twice.
Recommendation: See this movie with 15-30 year old males and enjoy.
Released: June 2015
Seen: 12 July 2015
Cinema: Hoyts Normal Screen
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, B. D. Wong, and Irrfan Khan
Gene: Sci-fi / Action
Rating: 6.5 / 10
Synopsis
Located off the coast of Costa Rica, the Jurassic World luxury resort provides a habitat for an array of genetically engineered dinosaurs, including the vicious and intelligent Indominus rex. When the massive creature escapes, it sets off a chain reaction that causes the other dinos to run amok. Now, it’s up to a former military man and animal expert (Chris Pratt) to use his special skills to save two young brothers and the rest of tourists from an all-out, prehistoric assault.
Review (warning spoilers)
The first Jurassic film was released in 1993 and was an amazing experience, terrifying real dinosaurs on the loose on a yet to be opened theme park just of Costa Rica. The movie explored whether humans should play God bringing back extinct animals, this also covered common grounds like greed and over reliance on automation in our life. But really it was the T-Rex and the other dinosaurs, the wonder at first and the terror later of predators on the loose.
Jurassic World is the fourth movie and the first since 2001. In many ways this is a reboot but also a sequel. There are many references to the first movie in particular as this movie is again set on the island of Costa Rica. This time they have the theme park up and running and apparently it has been safely working for close to a decade. But customers are growing bored with the attractions (not that you can tell from the park visitors in the movie who seemed to love the shows) so it’s time to create a super dinosaur based on T-Rex but with Velociraptors and other animals mixed into the DNA. So you have a super killer, with super strength, the ability to camouflage its self and even hide from heat senses. And it was made super smart. This makes for a great mix, and is hard to understand in the Jurassic Movie universe that this is set in. I mean they talk about all the people who died previously!
Chris Pratt plays the sensible dinosaur specialist, an ex-marine who has been training Velociraptors and keeps saying you need to treat this animals with extreme caution. Bryce Dallas Howard plays the executive running the park who becomes Chris Pratts love interest as she learns that the dinosaurs are creatures and not just assets and that playing God is extremely risky. In the background we have a shadow group trying to militarise these creatures, which obviously is going to work… Not!
The movie is a fun escape, and at times I was definitely drawn into the action but there wasn’t too much here unexpected. I figured out how the Indominus Rex was going to escape and which actors were going to die. There was some unexpected humour and I’m a big fan of Chris Pratt who I hope will one day be the new Indiana Jones so it hit a lot of good notes. There wasn’t the awe factor of the original however, at least not for me but maybe that’s before I’m 20 years older 😀
id recommend this movie for people who like action and Chris Pratt and a chance to have fun without questioning the logic of the movie.
Released: June 2015
Seen: 5 July 2015
Cinema: Hoyts Extreme Screen
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, and Jai Courtney
Gene: Sci-fi
Rating: 7 / 10
Synopsis
When John Connor (Jason Clarke), leader of the human resistance against Skynet, sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back to 1984 to protect his mother, Sarah (Emilia Clarke), from a Terminator assassin, an unexpected turn of events creates an altered timeline. Instead of a scared waitress, Sarah is a skilled fighter and has a Terminator guardian (Arnold Schwarzenegger) by her side. Faced with unlikely allies and dangerous new enemies, Reese sets out on an unexpected new mission: reset the future.
Review (warning spoilers)
The first Terminator film was released in 1984 when I was 10 years old and I didn’t get to see it until years later at home. However Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released in 1991 when I was 17 and was a massive hit in Australia and was the peak of the franchise with a great story, awesome music and great efforts. Plus Arnie was at the peak of his career. I’ve seen all the other movies and the TV series (which I thought was above average) but I was hoping they would get back some of the magic.
In Terminator Genisys the franchise is definitely on the right track even if not yet at destination greatness. Given this is a time travel story it was always easy to hit the reset button, or redirection button like the Back to The Future series. The first 10 minutes starts in the future explaining the war with the machines and showing us events that would have happened before the events in the first movie. The story is then flipped on its head once we go to 1984, Sarah Connor is the one with all the knowledge and fighting skills back when she first meets Kylie Reese back in 1984. The original / bad T-800 (Arnie) gets taken out not long after arriving in 1984 by an older version of himself. The movie gives a good enough explanation for why the good T-800 is now older (he traveled back to the 1970s to save Sarah and the outside skin grows naturally old).
The movie is obviously setting up future installments, clearing the decks of previous history that locks stories and creating a new set of questions. There is a post movie credits scene that gives a strong hint there is more to come, but the majority of cinema goers had left, obviously not fans of Marvel Films that do this all the time!
The Terminator franchise has always asked questions about destiny and free choice, about our nature to attack (in this movie humans, not Skynet does the pre-emptive attack) and how much we rely on technology which is only becoming greater as time goes on. Also ultimately can a computer have a soul, go beyond it’s programming. In real life if that occurs most great thinkers like Stephen Hawking between that will be the end of the human race.
There are still some great jokes in the movie. No nudity (come on Emilia Clarke!) and surprisingly little blood for the number of people killed. The only mistake I feel the movie made is not keeping most of the focus on Sarah Connor, her character starts so strong but isn’t as key in the final confrontation that you would feel she would be.
Overall I’d recommend this movie to any fan of Terminator movies, or a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his best movie outing since probably mid-1990s. Also make sure you watch at least the first Terminator movie again before watching to see the same scenes play out differently.
Late 1998 almost exactly 12 years after my first world trip as a 12 year old in 1986 I set off on my second overseas trip this time with my mother (Helen), sister (Kara) and nephew (Andrew). We flew to USA via Auckland on 31 October and returned to Australia on 19 November 1998 for a 20 day overseas trip.
Andrew’s first overseas trip
One of the first highlights of the trip was it was a surprised for Andrew who was 7 years old. He didn’t even know he had a passport when we headed to the airport. He thought he was saying goodbye to his grandmother and me for our USA trip. The surprise was total as he tried to race past security. Many years later his younger sister in the same situation cried at missing out on school and her friends but Andrew was instead racing to board a plane 🙂
Terrified At Splash Mountain
The major event of the trip was a 5 day pass to Disneyland. It sounds crazy now but the first day was on arrival and was only for a quick check it out / scope Disneyland so we knew where to go for the next few days. We also visited the Citidal Shopping Centre in Los Angeles which is a stop my mum would make for every future trip to the USA from this point onwards. Experiencing Disneyland though Andrew’s eyes made it extremely enjoyable.
Somehow I become the designated driver and later carrier for all the gifts and presents bought at the stores.
San Francisco was next up in a visit to Alcatraz, the Cable Cars and ice cream at Girhardilli House with later walks along Fisherman’s Wharf. My biggest memory of San Francisco however was the location of our hotel in a very rundown area of the city that my mum was recommended. I was thinking that ‘friend’ must not like her very much!
We then moved onto San Diego, with me doing a lot of the driving during this trip, to visit probably the greatest zoo in the world, the San Diego Zoo with there all white koalas, and later the Seaworld San Diego to get splashed by dolphins and enjoyed the Waterworld show. A quick stop back at LA for a visit to Knott’s Berry Farm was next, not has much fun as I remembered back in 1986 but Andrew loved it.
Our last visit was to Las Vegas and this time I could gamble, we attempt to gamble since I kept losing my money. We once again stayed at Circus Circus but by now the main attractions of the strip had moved down the road somewhat. Still I like Las Vegas and it would feature many move times in future USA visits.
If the 1986 trip was the start of my interest in seeing the world outside of Australia this trip confirmed it. I was just starting to earn enough money to be able to save for an independent trip. Just over 12 months later I was to be on my first big travel adventure, sure I started small by limiting to English speaking places in 1999-2000 but it was over 100 days outside the country.
Nathan's Insights 