Bad Guy v When Harry Met Sally

With a big shout out to Lucas, I am proud to share with my loyal readers some insights arising out of the viewing on consecutive days of When Harry Met Sally (Rob Reiner) and Bad Guy (Kim Ki-Duk).

I have had a terrible flu / head cold this week, and due to generalised weakness and lack of concentration I somehow agreed to watch When Harry Met Sally with M on valentines day. OMG. Meg Ryan in WHMS must be the least attractive character ever committed to celluloid. I've seen a lot over the years, and the sex scene between her and Billy Crystal is genuinely the scariest, most repulsive thing I've ever seen (and yes I am taking into account Alien, The Descent and Freddie Got Fingered). The best thing about the two of them getting together at the end is that it limited the destruction their psychoses and genes could inflict on others.

Anyway, last night I'd recovered some of my strength and suggested that this time we should watch a film of my selection. Bring on Bad Guy. A Korean film by Kim Ki-Duk film released in 2001 (well before he discovered tranquility in Spring, Summer, Fall ...), it centres around a college girl forcibly turned into a prostitute by the title character as revenge for ignoring his advances.

What really stood out is the incredible similarities between the two films. In both films:
- the male lead is set up as a pig who doesn't care for social conventions or how his behaviour affects others (inappropriate public displays of affection and spitting grapes for Harry, inappropriately forcing a kiss on an unwilling college girl and looking generally disreputable in Bad Guy)
- the initial meeting between the male and female leads is highly unpromising and looks very unlikely to lead to an ongoing relationship
- the male lead comes on to the female lead inappropriately and this is held against him
- the male lead lets off steam by hitting baseballs spat out by an automated ball machine
- the leads take a long time to recognise their true feelings for each other (many years, boring conversations and failed relationships in WHMS, multiple rapes, beatings and stabbings in Bad Guy)
- each of the films is ultimately a love story about a couple who don't recognise they are 'meant to be together' for at least an hour's worth of film after it is incredibly obvious to the viewer

Of course there are some differences. Billy Crystal talked non-stop for 90+ minutes, whereas Han-Gi has about 3 lines of dialogue.

A feelgood movie waiting to happen?

Great article in today's Washington Post about a former hot young baseball prospect who went off the deep end and is now trying to get his shit together.

He makes the AFL hoons look like mama's boys

The Devil and the Son of God are waging war from opposite corners of Josh Hamilton's body.

As he guides his Chevy Tahoe out of the driveway of his rental house and onto Interstate 75, for a 45-minute drive that just so happens to weave through a minefield of ugly memories, Hamilton, the Cincinnati Reds' newest outfielder, rests his once-prized left arm on the door, and suddenly the Devil's menacing face appears, etched in dark ink into the skin in the crook of Hamilton's elbow.

As the truck speeds north on a chilly morning toward Clearwater, where Hamilton will spend another day working out in preparation for the best and possibly last opportunity of his baseball career, the tattoo devil peers out the windshield. Below the freeway sit some of the very tattoo parlors and crack houses where Hamilton years ago defiled his body and squandered his enormous potential. A few miles ahead, in St. Petersburg, the big league stadium where Hamilton was supposed to have been a star rises from the horizon to mock him.

The tattoo devil, having long ago survived a bloody, failed attempt at removal, stares intently, gently prodding Hamilton to pull over and have some wild, wicked fun. Like in the old days.

...

That was the worst of the worst," Katie says. "Bringing your baby home is supposed to be such a joyous time -- and it wasn't that way. Just to know he was out using drugs and missing those precious moments -- it was just so hard and so sad. I was devastated."

One day, Hamilton wrote a check to a crack dealer -- "A couple grand," he says -- when he knew he didn't have the funds in the bank to cover it. He begged Katie to put some money in their account, but she refused.

When the check bounced and Josh started to feel the singular heat of a vengeful crack dealer, it was Mike Chadwick who asked Josh for the guy's name and phone number.

"I called to tell the guy I was coming," Chadwick says. "He said, 'Are you going to be packing heat?' I said, 'Do I need to?' When I got there, I told him, 'Look, I understand, business is business. Here's your money. But if you ever sell Josh crack again, I'll be back here, and it won't be pretty. I'm not scared or intimidated by you or your pals. And I'm just a little bit crazy.'

"There is no question that on multiple occasions Josh banged on the Devil's door. And why it never got opened -- well, I think God spared his life, because He had something in store for him."

Awesome blog post by BB

Everyone should read this blog post by BB... the madness has the unmistakeable ring of truth. With perhaps a touch of Easton Ellis - hey Ben - have you been rereading Lunar Park - or perhaps a little Glamorama?

7/2/7- 1930hrs: Half hour late, apologies. ninemsn home page and discussion of the attention economy ensues. freelance vs relocal'g to sf gulch vs bronte views. no ladies and gentlemen this is not a bubble, but there's some interesting people with some interesting views wandering around the corridors. they may be stalkrs.

More Lara Bingle

Wonder if Lara had a chance to catch up with Brendan while she was in Melbourne for the Allan Border Medal ceremony at Crown Casino a few days ago.

Heroes

Only two episodes in (in Australia), and I am hoping Heroes can keep it up... loving it so far.

In a hard-to-put-my-finger-on kind of way it feels very emblematic of 'now' - which means that it may not last, but that it will hopefully have an awesome Season One (and if I'm lucky a pretty good Series Two).

And in the meantime the show appears to have created a folk-hero in Hiro - see interview here.

gnoos

Well not much has changed at the gnoos site since it launched, but they must be doing something right - i'm averaging 10+ readers of my blog / week who are referred from gnoos. Ok they're not google yet (and I'm not exactly a syndicated columnist) but they are certainly generating some traffic.

ouch! newton v satchwell - from the H-S

ACTOR Matthew Newton allegedly gouged the face and eyes of his girlfriend of six years, actor Brooke Satchwell, leaving her fearing for her life.
He also is accused of repeatedly punching her head on two separate occasions, at one stage yelling: "I'm going to kill you."

Police allege Satchwell begged him to stop but was ignored.

The Herald Sun can report the allegations in the case for the first time.

Documents tendered during his initial bail hearing, on October 16 last year, assert Satchwell did not seek medical attention for her injuries or contact police initially because she was trying to protect her partner.

However, when Satchwell finally went to Balmain police station on October 15 – a week after the second alleged incident – she was still distraught.

The son of TV legend Bert Newton denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

The documents also allege Newton, 30, spent time in a psychiatric unit attached to Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. It was there police served him with an interim apprehended violence order after taking a detailed statement from Satchwell.

In the first incident, police allege a verbal argument became physical shortly after Satchwell arrived at the couple's Rozelle home on September 13 last year.

Newton gouged the 26-year-old's eyes and face with both of his hands before pushing her to the ground, it is alleged.

"(She) could feel the accused's fingernails in her eyes and face," the documents allege. Satchwell allegedly begged him to stop but he "continued gouging". The actor and director also allegedly pushed her into a wall, leaving her with injuries including bruises to her legs and hip, a cut and blistered big toe, scratches on her arms and bruises around her forearms.

Her swollen and bruised left eyelid was also seen by a number of Satchwell's colleagues as well as a mutual friend of the couple, police allege.

Three weeks later, on Friday October 6, Satchwell returned home from work about 10.30pm when a verbal argument ensued. "(Newton then) started punching the victim's head, gouged her face and dug his fingernails into her throat," police documents allege. "(She had) three or four fingernail scratch marks and bruising down the front of (her) throat."

One witness interviewed by police has told of seeing Satchwell's injuries, but also heard him say: "I'll kill her. I'm going to kill Brooke." While the witness claims he did not believe Newton would carry out the threats, he would be fearful if the actor "lost control" again. Police have charged Newton with four offences.

Freed on $1000 bail posted by his mother, Patti Newton, he has pleaded not guilty to two counts of common assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and stalking or intimidating Satchwell, intending to cause her to fear physical or mental harm. His lawyer, Chris Murphy, told Magistrate Ross Clugston this month the charges were the "residue of an expired relationship".

A June hearing date for the matter is expected to be set when the matter returns to Downing Centre Local Court today.

Make-or-Break Time For The Net Newbies

Excellent article in Business Week - for the "web 2.0" crowd 2007 will be the year to put up or shut up... time to prove that the business can scale beyond the founders, develop and implement a real distribution / sales strategy and pull in material revenues.

extracts below - but it's worth reading the whole article

It's a formula that has fired up Internet entrepreneurs from Palo Alto to Paris: Start with free software, add falling prices for computing and data storage, toss in ever-cheaper distribution costs, and you can launch an online service for practically nothing. But now that many so-called Web 2.0 outfits have a couple of years under their belts, it's sinking in that it takes real money to turn those ideas into real businesses--to reach a broad audience, scale up operations, and, you know, turn a profit. "It's true that you can do a science experiment more efficiently than you could five years ago," says Rob Shurtleff, managing director at Divergent Ventures, a venture capital firm. "But don't confuse doing the science experiment with building a large enterprise."

... out of scores or even hundreds of startups in any given category, whether it's video sharing or photo slideshows, only a handful will be bought in their first rush of success. ...

That means raising significant money to spend on nuts and bolts. Web services may cost mere hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up. But turning them into profitable companies could cost $15 million to $25million, much of which must be spent on distribution, engineering, and infrastructure, says Brad Feld, a managing director at Mobius Venture Capital Inc.

...

win some lose some

Won a case today I expected to lose. Yay. And my opponent was a jerk which makes it even better. I still can't believe he whispered "Game, Set and Match" to me when he got an answer he liked from my witness.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

Saw Perfume the other day... I was the only one of us who hadn't read the book, and consequently I think I liked the film more (coming to a film with zero expectations always helps).

I thought the film was well-acted and the set design was excellent, but it probably did drag on a little long... Apparently the Jean-Baptiste character (ie. the murderer of the film's title) is a far more sympathetic character in the book. But not knowing that, it didn't bother me.

Rachel Hurd-Wood was appropriately gorgeous. Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run etc) really likes the redheads.

Awesome youtube video - Kermit v NWA

Kermit is an angry, angry young muppet

Of minor interest

Watched the latest OC last night (The French Connection) -in Australia we're currently one episode behind the US... and couldn't help but notice the gratuitous insertion of Che into a couple of scenes as Summer's conscience. Weird. Is he related to a producer? Will he play a pivotal role in the denouement of the romance of the millenium between Summer and Seth?

nook

Great to see the Feedcorp / News Corp project nook starting to develop some momentum. It's a blogging / community 'platform' focused around Melbourne and local communities, owned and managed by Leader Newspapers (the local newspaper division of News Limited).

After some advertorial in the local papers this week, the community is absolutely flourishing - and not just with 'tech-heads' - plenty of normal people chatting about normal things ... saving water, why craigeburn is an awesome place to live, the hassles of parking in the CBD...

A combination of Cleopatra, Mata Hari and Paris Hilton?

John Mangan in today's edition of The Age joins the 'backlash against the backlash' club.

Why Lara's a star player in the game of blame

SHE burst into the public arena last year as the face of Australian tourism's cheeky, laid-back "So Where the Bloody Hell are You?" campaign, but in less than a year Lara Bingle has morphed into a combination of Cleopatra, Mata Hari and Paris Hilton, all wrapped up in one voluptuous, man-eating, wife-terrifying, 19-year-old package.

Worst of all, she has preyed on the nation's most helpless, hopeless fools for love — footballers and cricketers. While the discussion in coffee shops and at barbecues all over the country this week has been about Bingle, the question left hanging is where the bloody hell are the men in all this?

Bingle's plummet from cuddly beach bunny to fearsome femme fatale — think of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct or Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction — began when sexy photos of her turned up in men's magazines shortly after the Bloody Hell campaign made headlines all over the world.

Romantic controversies involving mobile phones with Sydney rugby league players quickly escalated to the high-profile double whammy of an alleged affair with AFL star Brendan Fevola and a two-week-old romance with Australian cricketer Michael Clarke.

The footballer's wife, Alex, came out in the press accusing Bingle of wrecking her marriage. "I've got two children and their lives — and mine — have been turned upside down, but she doesn't seem to care about that at all," she said.

Bingle, who has been keeping a very low profile of late, may well not be an innocent waif, but is she really the devil incarnate? "It goes back to an ancient kind of stereotype surrounding beautiful women," says Associate Professor Catharine Lumby from the University of Sydney. "They have a magical, evil power over men. There's a deep fear of the power of women's bodies, and Bingle has been turned into a media stereotype, like a siren from Greek mythology, luring helpless men to disaster and then heartlessly moving on.

"It's concerning to see how an individual can be so stereotyped, and the coverage has been quite mean-spirited. We often see this kind of treatment of attractive female celebrities."

Profound misogyny and class-based resentment underpin the way Bingle has been presented, says Dr Anna Hickey-Moody, from Monash University's faculty of education. "The coverage reflects a variety of anxieties. Lara is the young woman from Cronulla, an area that has been grossly stigmatised in the media, represented as an abject place, and she's seen as a vagabond female who is ruled by her sexuality. Whenever something threatening happens, it's easy to construct an old story to explain it, but in this case the story doesn't seem to have much to do with her. What gets left out is that the men she's involved with are responsible for their own actions."

Women's rights have come a long way in the past few decades, but some attitudes towards sexuality remain profoundly conservative, says Professor Joy Damousi from the University of Melbourne, who is co-writing a book on football spectatorship.

"The femme fatale is such an easy target in the media. You think of other targeted women like Kate Moss. The media really do like scapegoating, and women are better scapegoats than men, I think, because women's sexuality is still so feared," she says.

By being associated with footballers and cricketers, Bingle has entered a domain where men can virtually do no wrong, Professor Damousi says. "Male sportsmen are so iconic in our culture that they're elevated to a status almost beyond reproach. In a place like Melbourne they're bigger than pop stars. When they get in trouble they're seen as young blokes who need to sow their seeds. The justifications just keep coming. It's a very interesting question to ask if other men are treated so generously."

Notoriety may cost Bingle. The downgrading of her role in the tourism campaign may be more than a coincidence.

Professor Lumby says the public is awake to the double standard. " I don't think the public is buying the story. They know that men make choices too.

The backlash to the backlash has begun

Things are moving faster than ever.

The relatively recent Lara Bingle backlash has already reached hysterical proportions and attracted a counter-backlash - for example see here and here. In the blogger world News Limited is being blamed for Lara's bad publicity and she has attracted underdog status.

I don't know whether she had an affair with Brendan Favola or Michael Clarke - who does know? - but IMHO it does seem totally weird that she has suffered so much bad publicity while the guys appear to be regarded as less blameworthy for any wrong-doing. Double standards perhaps?

Movement on the US stem cell debate

As my readers may know, simplistically speaking the present law in the USA allows only very limited use of embryos for stem cell research. This has the effect of limiting the advances that can be made by scientific research through the use of cell lines created from embryos. The 'standard' argument in favour of these limitations rests on a view that emryos are people and that to destroy them is contrary to the principle of the sanctity of life. There are also other 'anti' arguments, including slippery slope arguments such as that pushed in Friday's Washington Post (12 Jan 07) by Charles Krauthammer.

You don't need religion to tremble at the thought of unrestricted embryo research. You simply have to have a healthy respect for the human capacity for doing evil in pursuit of the good. Once we have taken the position of many stem cell research advocates that embryos are discardable tissue with no more intrinsic value than a hangnail or an appendix, then all barriers are down. What is to prevent us from producing not just tissues and organs but humanlike organisms for preservation as a source of future body parts on demand?

...

The slope is very slippery. Which is why, even though I disagreed with where the president drew the line -- I would have permitted the use of fertility-clinic embryos that are discarded and are going to die anyway -- I applauded his insistence that some line must be drawn, that human embryos are not nothing and that societal values, not just the scientific imperative, should determine how they are treated.

Slippery slope arguments (ie. an argument that the thing in question may be ok, but if you allow it you are opening the door to other, bad things) are my least favourite form of ethical argument; they have always felt to me like the argument you make when you don't have anything better. But anyway, read Krauthammer's article if you're interested ... it's well written.

Stalemate or movement?

Since the mid-term elections, Congress has passed legislation allowing greater use of embryos discarded by fertility clinics for the purposes of stem cell research. The legislation will also be passed by the Senate, then appears headed for a Presidential veto... rinse and repeat. Although depending on how the Democrat majority plays out we may have some real movement.

Time will tell.

Yay for Little Lleyton

Lleyton Hewitt is behaving like a spoiled brat (again) gratuitously commenting about how little he was affected by recent resignation of his coach, Roger Rasheed, apparently after Little Lleyton's abuse became too much to bear.

From todays Age:

LLEYTON Hewitt has assessed the recovery of his calf injury at 90 per cent, while admitting it is impossible to quantify the inferior condition of his match fitness ahead of his first-round Australian Open match with American qualifier Michael Russell.

A relaxed-sounding Hewitt also said yesterday he was more affected by the one-and-a-half-centimetre muscle tear sustained in Adelaide 10 days ago than the subsequent split with his coach of more than three years, Roger Rasheed.

I guess it's time for his racket to do the talking... the Australian Open starts tomorrow.

Saw the Williams' walking down the street near my house yesterday - legs like tree trunks. Impressive looking women.

Sources of traffic - google, blogger, gnoos

I was looking at my blog stats earlier and was not at all surprised that more than 80% of my traffic comes from google (as does everyone else's!). But I was surprised to see that the only other two sources of any prominence are the blogger search tool and gnoos. Good on the Feedcorp guys - looks like they're building some traffic!

Jim Clark quits as Shutterfly Chairman

Jim Clark this week quit as Chairman and as a director of Shutterfly (NASDAQ:SFLY), a photo-finishing business in which he was the original investor and Chair. Clark is a well-known Silicon Valley phenomenon - as a founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, myCFO, Healtheon and Shutterfly and as a total maniac (as anyone who's read the fantastic Michael Lewis book The New New Thing would well know).

His letter to the company upon his resignation is worth reproducing:

Dear Jeff,

Please forward this to the other board members, as I do not have their addresses with me. After considerable thought over the holidays, I’ve decided effective today, January 1, 2007, to resign from the Board of Directors of Shutterfly. My reasons are twofold: 1) as a technologist, I feel there is little that I can offer to guide what has become a manufacturing company, and 2) because of the constraints imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley on my having any significant role on the board.

As I understand it, Sarbox dictates that I not Chair any committee due to the size of my holdings, not be on the compensation committee because of the loan I once made to the company, not be on the governance committee, and it even dictates that some other board member must carry out the perfunctory duties of the Chairman. What’s left is liability and constraints on stock transactions, neither of which excite me.

It seems pretty clear to me that lawmakers have gone too far in considering a large shareholder to be inappropriate in the roles, but it is equally clear that I have no ability to change this in the near term. My only solution is to become an outsider. I wish to be treated as such effective immediately.

I want to congratulate you and the team for what you have accomplished. You are doing a great job in a very competitive market, and I have no doubt that Shutterfly will continue to do well under your leadership. I will continue to recommend your service to all. Sincerely,
Jim Clark
Chairman of the Board
Shutterfly

Clark makes some good points; corporate governance reforms have been enacted to prevent past abuses, but by doing so they have restricted the roles available to capable people with a real personal stake in the success of the company.

In Australia corporate governance reforms have taken a different form, but nevertheless may - arguably - have a similar effect of reducing innovation and the role of entrepeneurs in corporate life while further promoting the 'old-boy' club of existing directors and professional managers.

Although entrepreneurs are often, by nature, bad with details and quick to circumvent procedure [and this is clearly very bad in a corporate context] their skills, energy and inability to accept failure are the lifeblood of business creativity and innovation and should therefore be encouraged. Entrepreneurship is fundamental to the future of capitalism and rule which prevent substantial shareholders from engaging in Board roles have a downside as well as an upside - an increase in board independence is not automatically to be cheered... it must be weighed against what is being lost.

Hot news: Lara Bingle chooses cool car

Lara Bingle shows good (automotive) taste... A Cooper S is quite the car of choice for a woman-about-town... the photograph at right was (apparently) taken when she left Michael Clarke's hotel room in The Rocks after an extended stay following Australia's win in the Sydney test.

Funny Haneke?

Have just discovered that one of the most interesting directors in contemporary cinema, Michael Haneke, is directing an English-language remake of my favourite of his films - Funny Games. See here for the imdb page on the remake (starring Naomi Watts!) - it appears that it's already been shot and is in post-production.

Funny Games, which I saw at MIFF some 9 or so years ago, left a huge impression. It is about a home invasion and was searingly traumatic and difficult to sit through, without showing much on-screen violence. Its power came from the inevitability of the outcome (and probably also from the lack of on-screen violence). It wasn't a Hollywood film, it was nothing like a Hollywood film and it is not giving anything away to say that it was very clear that there was never going to a be a happy ending. Wow. Now it will be a Hollywood film... fascinated to see how this version turns out.

RIP The OC

Today is a sad, sad day.

It is being reported that The OC will finish up at the end of Season IV (ie. the current season).

It's understandable; the show is still very watchable, but does not approach the dizzy heights of the first season.

Here's hoping that the talented cast Rachel Bilson moves on to bigger and better things.

Marie Antoinette

Saw Marie Antoinette on Xmas Day.

I can see why it's had less then glowing reviews, but I really enjoyed it.

I believe the film confirmed Sofia Coppola's talent . I am a big fan of Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation - and now MA. It's clear that Coppola is not exactly a plot-driven director; but she has displayed real talent at capturing the life and times of a young woman and
walking an audience through her world for a couple of hours.

The film looked simply amazing; the Versailles scenes (almost the whole film) define decadence and I thought Kirsten Dunst and Jason Schwarzman gave fantastic performances. And I can't help but love any film with Rip Torn in it.

A sure-fire win for every costume design and art direction award in 2007.

Lara Bingle

Channel 9 showed Lara Bingle in the crowd at the Sydney test today.
Didn't see Brendan with her. Maybe he was getting a beer.

wedding aarrggghh

am in the middle of wedding planning at the moment and not loving it. I am actually optimistic that the big day will be great; it's the 80-odd days leading up to it that i expect to suck. everyone has opinions. most of them are incompatible. so much pressure pushing towards a generic wedding. M has started reading wedding magazines. feeling totally suffocated. deep breath.

you hear about the guys who remain totally uninvolved and just turn up on the day. i'd love to be one of those people, but unfortunately i'm not.

Nevertheless remain very excited about the mid-year trip to Israel and Europe.....