Movie Meme - Question two

Question two - What classic film would you nominate for a remake?

That would be none.  

Casablanca without Bogey and Bergman

Wizard of Oz without Judy

Gone with the Wind without Viv Leigh

Arsenic and Old Lace without Cary Grant

All about Eve without Bette Davis.

Just a few off the top of my head that I can think off that just wouldn't have the same chemistry without the stars, wardrobe, scenery and co-stars.

A recent re-make although not a classic is a point in question.

"Clash of the Titans", vintage l981.  Watched this with the boys in the comfortable old Balwyn Cinema and it wasn't a great story but it was a pretty movie to watch. Stars Harry Hamlin and Judy Bowker were both pretty even the flying horse was pretty.  The Kraken wasn't but this was before CGI and we watched what we got.  The scenery and the wardrobe of the rest of the cast was beautiful, colour was spectacular, Ursula Andress glowing but then she was playing off set with the pretty Harry.  I enjoyed all of it.

Not so much the remake with Sam Worthington whose Aussie accent could have decapitated the Gorgon with a word not a sword.  Okay so the world back then probably was grey, dirty and gritty but trying to watch it was like watching a Grand Final through a snow/hail/rain/thunderstorm.  It had less of a story than version 1, more gore, more hairy men and CGI monsters though.  The female 'sacrifice du jour' I can't even picture, but Judy Bowker I still remember from version 1.  Fortunately I didn't pay out money to see this but watched it on TV and I doubt it would have been any better on a large screen.  I didn't mind Sam in Terminator Salvation but couldn't have someone done something with his strine in this film.

For the last word on remakes, George Lukas regrets playing around with the first StarWars film and putting in more CGI characters just because he could, it added nothing and annoyed us, the devoted fans of the original.

It's a pigeon!

Isn't he a pretty bird? 

Elephant's Child was right on the money with her identification of him as a Common Bronzewing Pigeon.  I was lucky to see the brilliant flash on the wings as the sun was just at the right angle.  I wouldn't have been close enough to photograph him as they fly off very quickly if disturbed not like the other freeloaders around here.  I hope he comes back as I've never seen one like this before under the buffet tree in my backyard.

Movie Meme

This was a good meme put out by The Plastic Mancunian and I've been trying to fill it all out for a week so I thought maybe one question at a time.
1. What is your all time favourite movie costume?

All through the first StarWars movie Princess Leia  was head to toe covered by fabric and who could forget those coffee scroll head braids. I loved the movie then and still watch it now.
We couldn't wait for the next episode to hit the big screen and when the Princess came out from all those layers and you could practically hear the schoolboys drooling in the theatre.

The  outfit might have been skimpy but she managed to strangle Jabba the Hut with a chain and not show any more than she was showing here.  I think this part of the 3rd film is my favourite  before we have to put up with the Ewoks.
It was a great costume and made a statement the Princess lived up to. 

1500 and still going.

Not quite up to Andrew's prolific output but 1500 posts in 7 years isn't bad. And I'm back at IE because FireFox was being very annoying, it's faster than IE but annoying. Firefox also wouldn't let me comment on some blogs including Highriser with his fancy new comment format.  Four times my comment disappeared into cyberspace so I gave up.  The same happens at Miss O'Dyne's.

Now for all my birdie watchers I need a bird identified.  By the time I managed to grab the camera he was gone so here's a wonky description.
Larger than a dove but the same colouring except from the beak to the eyes, the feathers were a cream colour.  Then he turned around and flashed a brilliant irridescent orange along the wing feathers and that only happened when the sun shone on the feathers otherwise, dull greyish. He was scoffing down the fruitbread I'd just put out and there were no other birds around so one of a kind in my yard.

I have lost some weight and Doc Marvin has given me 6 to 12 months to drop some more before we start thinking of more drastic measures.  Of course, given the size of me, 2kgs just made me look to see if a toe had dropped off but I'll take anything at this stage.  Blood pressure was down, I can't imagine why, but now my elephant legs are getting a dose of diuretics.  Don't take these without knowing where every toilet is located and heaven help me if a bus goes over a bump. 
I did well yesterday with the walking but I paid for it last night. Life lesson no. 359, don't walk far in shoes you haven't walked in since last summer when the feet weren't quite as swollen.  My mission now is to get back to the weight I was two years ago, middle 130's.

Doc Marvin made notes when I told him I had an eating disorder.  He'd never heard of food being used as anger management but then he's never been locked up with my mother or had a 6 week guest stay for two years.

Shut up Mr. Myagi!

It was a somewhat hectic week. I haven't caught up with blogs or even looked at mine.

Monday the big crusher truck came down the street and picked up all the leftovers and crushed them. Congrats to us, the scavengers, for our recycling efforts and up the Council for calling us thieves and threatening to land us with big fines.  Monday was also the day I ran out of arthritis pills, no problem I'll get them tomorrow on the way to see mother but I forgot. Big mistake.

Tuesday night the pain really ramped up, no problem I can hold out until Thursday when I go shopping.  No you can't says the body and before you can yell militant protest, the joints did.  Left hand was okay but right hand felt as if I'd gone 5 rounds with Mike Tyson. I worked out that if I taped it then I'd remember not to bend the knuckles and it wouldn't hurt as much and it didn't.  I also couldn't hold a pen, use the keyboard, get lids off anything or get pills out of stupid packaging.  I make a mental note to not have op for carpal tunnel which this pain isn't, it's arthritis pain but carpal tunnel op probably needs the hand being taped up.

Wednesday is horrible day, I don't get dressed not even to take the garbage bin out but sit and enjoy a book I've been promising myself to read after housework.  Can't do housework when every thing is hurting, much better to rest and read.  Until phone call from No. 1 granddaughter  to inform me that she will be arriving on Thursday morning from Brisbane and is it okay to visit.  Need she ask?  And then I start with the house tidying, not housework which is beyond me but moving boxes etc to where I had mentally moved them when sitting and reading.  Damn me but just look at that, the hall entrance is clear for the first time in two years, just don't look down the hallway.  I can get to the desk to dust which doesn't happen. Lounge needs brooming before a vac, chairs cleared for people to sit down and if I don't move anything perhaps no-one will notice the dust.  Hang up clothes, put away clean washing, dirty washing to the laundry and shut door.  Dishes? What dishes, I see no dishes, shut door.  The hand vac will get up the big pieces if I don't get time to get out the big guy.  Wouldn't you know it, the hand vac is fritzed. Doesn't anything last these days? Hmm, 20 years of solid duty will take its toll so I use a brush and dustpan but straightening up brings a protest from the spine, knees and one foot.  I decide that collapsing in a chair is good and gives the rest of the body time to have a protest as well.  

Thursday morning, I shower and clean the toilet and bathroom and beautify myself for gorgeous granddaughter.  Her other grandparents have picked her up from the airport and we all head for Southland where she will take the car. I must say her grandfather was fascinated by the hallway of forgotten things.  I had squeezed myself into the back seat of the teeny car and now had to get out, one foot first then me then other foot. Why don't back doors open right out.  It was like unfolding a protein under a microscope and I felt the side muscle go.  I don't care I'm with granddaughter I haven't seen for two years and I'm about to share my precious time with mother and sister.  That blacked out area is my sister who threatened to sue if I published her on the web.  Back in tiny car, out of tiny car for lunch, back in tiny car for home and by this time I have no knees just two bones worth of pain.  It was worth every broken piece of me. And it's spooky driving with someone you remember changing nappies on.


Friday I shopped for pain pills and I took them in the middle of the pharmacy.  I took anti spasm muscle pills in the middle of Safeway after I asked a stranger to crack the top of the water bottle.
Going home I ran into a herd of teenagers in full voice.  2pm and they were waiting to see Kim Kardashion at 4pm so I can't imagine what the noise would have been like then.  It pissed me off mightily that she was making a personal appearance to flog her weight loss product to teenagers. I hope her make-up melted.  By midnight the pain was gone, lovely little pills and I could untape my hand.

Saturday, mother again until her roomies came back and started fighting.  I walked to the taxi rank in lovely sunshine and no pain.  More visitors. BOH, little mother and great nephew.  They'd been to see mother and called in on his mother and a flying visit to me.  The little one was having a bit of wind so I threw him over my shoulder and began to rub his back and he went out like a light and was still asleep when they put him in the car seat. His parents were so astonished that he went to sleep they both took photos.  As for me, I got to see the back of his head and one little hand he put around my neck. That's one good reason for having a well padded balcony.
Now it's Sunday and it's quiet, very quiet and it's the Equinox, early to bed for me.

 

I COULDN'T DO IT!

The poor little thing with his one ear, thanks to SE Water workers, so pathetic that I just couldn't bring myself to chuck him on the pile.        

And his mates kind of nestled up to him when I put them there for the photo.  I'll give them a bit of a paint job with the rest of the gnomes and they can continue to guard the water meter with the not so bad goanna on a log.

Yes, I'm sentimental and soft as marshmallow but those little almost gone eyes still looked at me.

Maybe I could paint a pirate patch where his ear used to be.

On the good side, I grabbed a role of purple synthetic leather from herontheotherside whose husband was an upholsterer and only bought really expensive materials.  It's going to make great shoulder bags for the next 20 years.

My feet, my knees, down but not out

Next door's pile of hard rubbish just found a new home.  I spotted it as I was getting in the taxi yesterday and if it had been there when I collected the mail, I'd have brought it in then.  So off I went resigned to missing it because I wouldn't be home until late and the curb crawlers were already out in force.  But no, I win, still there when I arrived home in the dark.  Thank goodness they'd taken the legs off because I doubt I'd have been able to carry it. I dragged it as quietly as I could up the footpath and down the drive then went back for the legs, momentary panic as I noticed only two but they were shoved inside each other.  Then the chairs, no superwoman you can't carry 6 chairs at once without a heart attack, I had trouble carry two so it was one by one.

Surprisingly heavy those chairs and all this done in the dark.  Mind you I'm going to have words with himnextdoor. He knows I get first dibs on anything good like this but shewhomustbeobeyed must have put them out. 

So this afternoon when I came back from a very long walk and I hate people who tell me to burn through the pain, it just gets you more pain.  I had to buy a new purse so I walked to  the Tosca outlet in Warrigal Road (bite me Andrew) lunched at Nando's and walked home.  Was it worth the pain, yes, to buy a purse on special down from $89.95 to $49.95 and one where the cards actually fit in the spaces. I always buy the same type of purse so I know at a glance that I haven't misplaced the important cards.  I really would have loved the tiger skin patent leather but it wasn't on special and it had a clip opening part for coins, painful to open with hurty fingers.

I didn't take the shopping trolley knowing I would be walking through piles of hard rubbish just dying for a good home and walked back the long way round for the same reason, no temptation.  Damn homeowners who let hedges grow over their brick fences, only one place for a fat bum to take a load off the knees.

I was going to keep the old patio table with the big hole in the middle where the screaming north wind upended the shade brolley and crashed it down.  The cat was forever rolling over the table and going through the middle.  I thought it might be okay at the back for putting my tomato plants on but why make it easy the birds and possums to get at them so it's out for collection. I did keep the green chairs, those cream ones looked a bit on the snug side and the green ones are so comfortable.  And if that upturned bed base hadn't been on a busy road I'd have nicked the six wheels off that.  That was my grandfather's motto, "never throw out the wheels".  A lesson I could never get through to the BOH, who hasn't turned up to put all the small car parts out. I'll probably end up painting them to look like garden gnomes.  I just remembered I haven't put out the one earred concrete pig. I feel bad about doing that, he's been here so long but he looks so pathetic but he'll have company since the eyes have washed off the concrete dogs and they belonged to the ex anyway.  Very chichi, not like my flock of concrete ducks.  Apparently he has a garden full of concrete 'things' at his new place.  The horror, the horror.

Show-off males, in every species.

A male Australian Peacock Spider expands its colourful fan and throws up a pair of legs to impress a nearby female.

This was taken by Jurgen Otto of New South Wales and is a finalist in the Animal Behaviour category of the ANZANG Nature photography contest.

Visit  here to see more fantastic photos in the competition.

Elephant's Child and River should be taking notes for next year's competition.

Australia the beautiful

 Above the beauty of the ancient domes of the Bungle Bungle Range in Western Australia is our Milky Way which was formed over a10 billion years ago.  These domes appear as huge layered beehives and are made of sandstones and conglomerates deposited over 350 million years ago and were shown on the ABC programme on the different ages of the land of Australia. I never get tired of seeing the beauty of the Milky Way's central band shown arching from horizon to horizon and I have a great collection of images. This photo was taken from the dark skies of Purnululu National Park about two months ago by Mike Salway. I have it set as desktop wallpaper and it's just breathtaking.

The Home has students from the various Secondary colleges around Mentone come in as part of their community service and I was surprised to be asked by one if I believed God made the Earth in 6 days and was only 6000 years old. I gave my stock reply, "and on the 7th day he gave us religion and stuffed the whole lot up". But I did go on and ask her how she could reconcile scientific fact, like the Bungle Bungles, with an age of 6000 years. She said she didn't really believe that but looked a bit uncertain. Then to totally confuse the issue, she asked if I thought the moon landings were real.  I'll leave out the part where she looked stunned that I was around to watch it on tv.  These modern children are really light years ahead of the history of the 20th Century.  She thought it could all have been done in front of a 'green screen' like StarWars and Harry Potter with the astronauts hopping around and the moon put in later.  We didn't have 'green screen' in the late sixties and that brought more questions from them and answers from me.

  

They don't know what it's like without the internet, mobile phones and can't even imagine the world without them. Mother was really gone by this time, eyes glazed over and questions going straight through to the keeper.  It's all very well to have them come in to ask questions of the residents about their lives but it's hard when the residents have all but left the building which is why they end up with me.  Mind you mother wasn't completely away with the fairies because she told me off for saying Christianity was a cult in Roman times, a mistake really because then I had to explain why it was a cult. After that I wasn't game to ask if they knew what a synchrotron was.  

This group ends their visits on Friday  and I have to break in a new mob next term.

Spring sun

It's spring, damn awful spring so far what with the freezing and the wild winds but today was sunshine from the get go. 

The line is full of laundry.

The sewing room is half vac'd.

The boxes are in place.

The bed has been changed.

The bedside table drawer is neat with everything in place. That's everything I took out and re-arranged before Christmas and couldn't find a thing ever after. All back where it should be now.

The books are stacked neatly.

The sewing machine is ready to go.

Three bags out by the gate for collection.

I even dusted a shelf.

And it's only the tenth day of spring.

Thank the goddess we'll be back to crummy weather by Thursday otherwise I could burn out and give it all up.

Don't ask about washing the dishes.  When the plastic container I'm currently using falls apart I'm sure I'll get around to the dishes.

Stormy weather

Wow, things were a little hairy around these parts last night.  In fact when I had a late shower I kept the big torch on in the bathroom just in case the lights blew.  That's happened to me before and it's very Alfred Hitchcock to be in the shower in the pitch dark.

The lights flickered a couple of times, the glass in the front windows rattled and I heard the patio chairs heading for the back fence. Bedtime saw me at the ready with the mobile phone, small torch and large in case of emergency.  Not that the tree would hit the house but it would bring down every wire across the road.

And the insurance hadn't been fixed up but my lovely broker had a cover note on the house until I signed the papers.  He ended up getting a good deal for me and next year we'll combine house and contents with the same company.  So Westpac Insurance just lost a customer for being greedy and whacking an extra $20 a month on my premium. And fortunately the tree is still standing.

It has been nearly a week since I blogged after the traumatic full moon Friday at the home. I still can't blog about it. Miss O'Dyne was the recepient of the hysterical email when I finally got home. Don't ever diss the full moon effect on the minds of the not-quite-with-it residents.

My mind has been in some disarray with depression peering at me from around corners just waiting to pounce so I've been not in the mood to keep going with the housecleaning.  I twisted my spine wrangling a wheelchair last Friday and my left leg looks like I've stolen it from some wandering elephant. And it has not been the ideal weather for icepacks every two hours.  The carpal tunnel test didn't take long but I haven't bothered finding out how bad it is.  It's not been the weather for hospital news either.  Bits of me aren't working well at all. I've given up cappuccino and muffin treats, I'm still off chocolate and shopping was such a chore today that I completely missed the biscuit aisle.  And stupid me bought food I'll actually have to cook.  

Also depressing is the fact that Mrs R thinks we should all work for $2 an hour, bless her gold tipped miserly heart.  I wonder if anyone told the poor workers who've already been shot out of Darryl Lea's vacant shop at Southland.  I mean I was hoping they would have a closing down sale of goodies but shop boarded up and all gone. The only thing I really looked forward to at Christmas was their box of candies and nougat. No more soft licorice either.  It's a sad world when the sweetie shops close.