I really don’t know what to think of this at all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2igjYFojUo

On the one hand, my inner Wes Anderson apologist is whispering reassuring nothings that “it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine, once you’ve seen the whole thing everything will drop into place and sense”. Meanwhile, my inner Roald Dahl fan is screaming blue and fierce murder – “What the FUCK have you done to my favourite childhood story? *thousands of sad D: faces*”

Why does the conflation of two of my favourite things look so bad? WHY?

Jen: pullman is a little bit hot tho

Hayley: pfft. president in goddamn independence day!

Jen: um. exactly

Hayley: this is also true

Hayley: hush, that movie’s awesome

Jen: I’m sorry, what movie were YOU watching?!

Hayley: the awesome one where the fresh prince saves everyone from crazy aliens.

Jen: yuh huh. have you ever watched the end of that film? that is an atrocious ending. the one is which the entire world has to wait for america before they get off their arses and I dunno, try to save their OWN LIVES?

Hayley: dude, it’s called INDEPENDENCE DAY. of course everyone has to wait for the americans to do shit! it’s not like we could call on china or something *cough*

Jen: I’m afraid of you right now. Who the hell am I talking to?! Is this … Hayley?!

Hayley: look, it has nostalgic value or something? i remember watching it at school at the end of term when the teachers couldn’t be bothered with real lessons.

Jen: hmmm. that is an absolutely shit end of term movie! I had Princess Bride.

Hayley: i don’t care. independence day is lovely and fuzzy in my mind and bill pullman was the best president ever until jed bartlett came along. fin

Jen: man, right now I’m wondering if I should go back and watch that turd. and I know I can’t talk, because I have watched and loved so many trashy, trashy films…

Hayley: you should watch it!

Jen: but, like. IT’S CALLED INDEPENDENCE DAY. IT’S AN AFFRONT TO US ALL.

Hayley: it is trashtastic

Jen: hmmmm hmmmm

Hayley: just try to overlook the rampant american imperialism. for me? *bats eyelashes*

Jen: I’ll try. God, I do not have one good memory about that film though.

Hayley: really? I find this incredulating. then again, i haven’t  watched it for, what, ten years? maybe it’s my mind that’s cracked!

Jen: ok, now I’m making us both watch it, so I can make faces at you after we both realise that yes, it’s really really bad

Hayley: AWESOME

Hayley: i’m gonna bring pie … good ol’ fashioned american apple pie …

Jen: hang on…

Jen: omg did you say you’d bring PIE?!

Hayley: … yes

Hayley: is pie worth watching independence day for?

Jen: FUCK YES. I’LL TOTALLY WATCH THAT FILM WITH A SMILE ON MY FACE IF YOU BRING ME PIE

Hayley: YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

So I was having a tres interesting chat with Jen (she’s from the internet) the other day about our respective blogs. Jen complained that she felt her blog was far too personal and narcissistic, where I countered with the fact that I never actually talk about me, I just talk about things that I like. You may extrapolate from that what you will in this piecing together of what people reveal about themselves upon the interwebs, but in the meantime, in order to prove to Jen that I can bring the personal to the yard (in an utterly facetious manner, of course), here’s a crapload of completely personal (and ridonkulous) text messages I’ve sent to people in the past few weeks.

“So I hear she got dragged to hell. Good! The perfect man clearly deserves better (ie. us, in our mountain shack of love).”

” ooh don’t know if i’ll be able to come earlier, i’m in the middle of a star trek two-parter! spock has mutinied, i need to find out why *is a super nerd*”

“OMG HAWKEYE IS JACK’S REAL DAD!!! (just catching up on 30 rock, ignore me).”

“I ATE ALL THE CHEESE!”

“WHY IS THERE A COCK-EYED DEMENTED OWL ON THE COMPUTER DESKTOP?!!!”

“Okay, inappropriate crushes, i just developed another. I just finished watching the original MASH movie for the first time and, I say this with the utmost sincerity, young Elliott Gould was totally BANGING.”

“now i am happily imagining you driving obscenely fast in some kind of swedish supercar bellowing ‘POWER!’ because we all know that is what driving lessons with jeremy would entail.”

“Is it true that there is a point in a man’s head where if you shoot it, it will blow up? I don’t know what it is, but I ADORE hot fuzz whereas I just greatly enjoy shaun. the abscence of jessica is a sticking point, but shaun also involved the disembowelment of dylan moran, which is something i NEVER NEEDED TO SEE!”

“I never said they were GOOD, I just said they were probably vegetarian!”

Turns out I just talk to my friends about shit I like too. And abuse capslock just as much as I do here. At least I am predictable across various technological mediums.

Tra-le-tra-lay! Here is what on my mind today!

1. Okay, so I’ve been told that The Big Bang Theory is something that I should be watching. Apparantly it speaks to nerds, a claim that I have in the past sneered severely at, as there is no way that a show created by the dude that also created Two and a Half Men speaks to my damn people. But the two times I have wandered past the TV when it has been on lately caused me to first encounter “klingon boggle”, and then “rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock”. Fuck, something that littered with Star Trek references is something I’m going to like, isn’t it? Shiiiiiiiit.

2. Reading all the press burblings from the Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince premiere (how excited are you for this movie? I AM SO GODDAMN EXCITED), all the focus on the three main stars has boiled down into “Dan Radcliffe is a PROPER ACTOR cos of all that naked theatre he did; Emma Watson is pretty and models for Burbury; Rupert Grint has swine flu.” Oh, dear me.

3. I had a dream last night that I was shopping at Marks & Sparks and had a trolley full of little tubs of trifle and copies of The Guardian. Am a little disconcerted at how content I felt after waking from this dream: the many trips to M & S to procure desserty delights and newspaper words while I was England-frolicking clearly left a giant glowing happy puff of a presence on my mind.

4. Also! I have been on the hunt for all the delightful Britishy foods that I became addicted to while away. I have found Oz suppliers for Minstrels and Irn-Bru, but a source of jaffa cakes continues to allude me, alas, for they are my favourite! And I only have three cakes left out of the billions of boxes I smuggled into the country (British people: send me jaffa cakes).

5. It is nearly Melbourne International Film Festival time! *squeeeeee* I went quite mad when tickets were released this morning. I may in fact be spending a solid week in a variety of cinemas. Eh, it’ll be worth it.

6. I am never going to get sick of having cocktails with Jen at 1806. Also I need to get over feeling less than classy for liking bourbon-based cocktails as much as I do.

7. I’m now off to watch Rachel Getting Married. I’m a bit ‘meh’ about the prospect, really, everyone I know has been bothering me the past few months with “Anne Hathaway should have won best actress, blah blah blah”, to which the Kate Winslet fan in me raises an eyebrow and drawls “Oh, really?” Hopefully it’s better than my expectations.

HAYLEY!? Where the hell have you been?

Jeeze, can’t someone run away to Europe for two months and use it as an excuse not to update her blog ever?

So, yes, I ain’t dead! And yes, SASS will rise once more from idleness into, well, back to hyperactive musings as soon as I get back into the swing of non-holiday life. Keep yourselves a-tuned.

It is true, I experienced the Best Day Ever (TM) last Sunday. Come under the veil, let me show you the wonders I found.

Admittedly, the action didn’t get going till around six at night, though I had spent the day happy pottering around slowly as one should do on a Sunday, having an extended lunch and buying children’s books and whatnot, building up a congenial feeling of contentment with the day. The real excitement came as I met up with Jen for an evening of nosh, cocktails and comedy.

Having learnt from our previous drinking adventures, we prepared overselves with a fortifying visit to Lord of the Fries to chow down on stomach-lining chips and vegan nuggets. Oh lordy, those vegan nuggets. I don’t know what kind of soy-based product they make those things out of, I only know that they are delicious. Having thus armoured ourselves, we made our way to 1806.

1806 is a swish cocktail bar that I’ve see reviewed all over the place to pretty much universal praise and delight. It’s cockmail menu has won awards and everything (lawks!), and I was enamoured reading their online menu just purely for all the historical stories behind each of the drinks. Sunday night seems to be the time to make a visit, too, as it was nice and quiet as we strolled in, meaning not much of a wait until we were supping delicious concoctions.

I started off with a Pimms Fizz, as I cannot refuse something that involves Pimms (it is an addiction). It came in a glass the length of my forearm, garnished with wedges of lemon and a thick slice of cucumber. It was envigorating and refreshing as only Pimms can be, though I have to cheekily say that I think I prefer my own Pimms punch concoction better (though that may only be because I prepare it in a jug, meaning there’s a lot more of it!). Jen ordered a Peach Sour, which was appropriately named, being tart yet still pleasantly refreshing.

For our second and last round, I went with a Manhattan, purely because it came with a marischino cherry and I am an utter sucker for those. Usually I don’t do well with bourbon-based drinks, and although this one was strong as all get out, it left me with a little warm fire that burnt happily away in my belly, very pleasant. But Jen came away with the drink of the night, the Bitter Chocolate Orange Martini. Probably very similar to the opening cocktail we had that time at Cafe Vue, it was a blend of chocolate, gin, Campari and orange and oh goodness it was good. Subtle on the tongue at first, then delivering an absolute kick to the tastebuds. Divine.

Happily treading water in alcohol, and loudly voicing our intention to return to 1806 repeatedly in future, Jen and I made our way down to the Town Hall to join in some Comedy Festival fun. We saw Josie Long in her show All The World’s Wonders (Shown in Detail). I was a bit over-anxious for it to be awesome, because since I’m going to Europe at the end of this month I have zero spare dollars and really could only go to one comedy fest show, rather than going mad like I usually do and seeing as many as possible. BUT, I should not have feared, because it was all a gorgeous and enchanting affair. Anyone as wonderfully infectious and enthusiastic about learning as Josie was (because the show is all about the thrill of learning and discovery, and how we do, and especially collect, the strangest things in order to preserve knowledge) charms me in a second. Because who doesn’t love learning stuff?! (Nerds, represent) And it also features one of the best and most magical instances of audience participation I’ve ever seen, and was lucky enough to be a part of.

So bootle down and see Josie while you can, particularly if you’re sore about missing the blink-and-they-were-gone Daniel Kitson shows, because this show is the perfect balm, with the added bonus of having less bleakness and more jokes about stealing promotional pens (with accompanying mime! Oh yeah!). Also if you are feeling like a comedy tart, try to catch the Bedroom Philosopher and Hannah Gadsby too, because they are both super awesome and I wish I was seeing them. The end.

…may or may not have cried a little bit watching the new Star Trek movie trailer.

…

…

DON’T JUDGE ME!

Yesterday I got to see both the Watchmen movie, and also Of Montreal live. So it pretty much meant that I had the best day ever.

I won’t go too much into Watchmen, seeing as it’s only just come out and I don’t want to spoil peeps, but I have to say, even as an absolute comics nut…I kinda liked the movie better than the comic. I know, I know, I’m going to end up being dragged away to be shot against a wall by Alan Moore. I think it’s just because despite the story being AMAZING, the art of the comic never really grabbed me. I have an aversion to the classic ‘Superhero’ style of comic design, you know, overly muscled bodies, all the same sort of body types and expressions, they just seem so flat and harsh, and I find it difficult to read comics rendered in that style even if the story proves compelling (I had the same sort of trouble with some of the Sandman issues – love the story to bits, but some of the art? Blech). So seeing the story instead told with real people and astounding sets and costumes (and oh lordy thank god they updated the majority of the costumes from the comic. Can you imagine if Nite Owl had been running around in that brown hoodie contraption of a costume from the comic? BAHAHA!), I engaged with the story on far more personal level, and felt the characters more. And really, so much of the movie mirrors the comic down to mimicing actual panels that I didn’t feel that the story had been tampered with or truncated in any detrimental fashion. Fanatical fans of the comic may not feel the same, and probably will find plenty of things to irk them, but for me, it was all highly enjoyable.

Onwards to Of Montreal times! I think the experience of seeing Of Montreal live can be best described as equal parts music gig, interactive art installation and demented panto. Everyone were in costumes, and along with the band were a procession of performance artists: a cardinal who turned into a devil; mock battles between various costumed man-creatures (including Dinosaur Superman!) and a white-tuxedoed man with a tiger’s head; a pink-lyra bodysuited man who carried fruit in the, ahem, “package” area, and proceeded to extract said fruit, messily eat it, then throw the remains into the incoherent crowd. 

Speaking of the crowd, I thought I had encountered fanatical crowds before (indeed, had thought I’d seen the most fanatical crowd ever at Death Cab For Cutie a few weeks ago), but this was…this was different. The level of adulation kind of bordered on the scary if you could see what was going on in the front row. There was a group of guys and girls who were dead centre in front of the stage who were completely going out of their gourds – screaming with barely a pause for breath, grabbing onto any member of the band that strayed into the path of their reaching arms and refusing to let go, attempting to steal costumes, throwing presents and flowers onto the stage, dissolving into crying hysterics whenever a band member even slightly acknowledged them – it was actually a bit terrifying, I hadn’t seen anything like it since a My Chemical Romance show a few years ago. And that had been teenage girls going hormone crazy, not people who looked as if they were at least in their early twenties. Madness!

Despite crazy folk, it was a very pleasant crowd to be a part of (definitely one of the loudest and enthusiastic!), and the band seemed to appreciate it greatly. Hopefully the gleeful Aussie reception encourages Of Montreal to come here again. And again! And if you enjoy colourful spectacles accompanied by falsetto-warbled electro-indie songs with pervy lyrics, make sure next time you’re there too.

“Eva, I’m sorry, but you will never have me. To me you’re just some faggy girl, and I need a lover with soul power. And you ain’t got no soul power!”

HA! I bet you all thought I had carried out my threat of early February and had literally died from rage at Slumdog Millionaire winning all those damn Oscars. Well, it was a close call, but I graciously decided that I should continue living out of spite (I am a generous soul). Quick Oscars hash-up for those who didn’t read all the reports last week: I thought my love of Penelope Cruz had peaked at dizzying levels when she won best supporting actress, but it actually reached truly mountainous proportions at her incredulous raised eyebrow and eye-roll combo directly after the appalling ”The musical is back!” number; Sean Penn robbed the world of the greatest Oscars acceptance speech ever, cos you know that if Mickey Rourke had won he would have dedicated it to his recently deceased dog, and that would have been The Greatest Thing Ever; I want Tina Fey to be my new best friend (“Oh Steve, let’s not bother people with our religion…that we made up…”); Where was Jack Nicholson? He’s always there in the front row of the auditorium, sunglasses on and when panned to by cameras is always laughing and saying something like “Oh yeah!” I have an entire Oscars drinking game based around his presence at this thing and he wasn’t there! Causing me to be very sober throughout the telecast! And also I missed Jon Stewart hosting. No offense, Hugh, but…you’re not Jon Stewart.

Anyway, what? Oh yes, this post is meant to be about food! 

So on Friday night Jen took me out on my belated Christmas present outing to Cafe Vue’s Friday night cocktails. HOLY BEEJEEBUS, YOU MUST ALL DO THIS AT LEAST ONCE IT IS WONDERFULLY DECADENT. The dealio is you get five cocktails accompanied by five courses of nibbles, the nibbles of course coming from the Vue de Monde kitchens next door. And compared to a night out at the de Monde side of Vue, the Cafe stylings are practically frugal on the money front, at $75 or so a head.

Ready to hear what we enjoyed? Brace yourselves, the following is classified as Delicious. 

The theme for the cocktails and courses was Roaring Twenties, and oh I totally encourage you to dress up for it. This is dressing-up food, and my only regret that it was far to hot for me to wear my red felt cloche hat in order to really set the atmosphere.

First cocktail was a Twentieth Century. It was lemony. It was chocolatey. It was lemon and chocolate liqueurs together! It seemed A Little Bit Wrong at first sip, yet melded on the tongue into something delightfully pleasant and simultaneously refreshing and warming. It was served with crab and potato ravioli on the proper menu but, a-ha! I am vegetarian and instead received special veggie concoctions: a tent of mozzarella skin decorated with mini grissini sticks, appearing entirely reminiscent of the Cirque de Soleil big top, hiding a herby ricotta centre and dotted with dehydrated olives and tomato shards. It seemed a shame to demolish it, but my tummy obliged me to do just that.

Second course! A mint julep (which is really the only way to enjoy bourbon, otherwise it’s just far too codeifyied in my memory with terrible Year 10 parties, ergh), accompanied with soup served in a champagne glass.  Jen had a mock turtle soup, which I think was made with lamb? I really wasn’t paying attention, I was far too enamoured with my soup, which was a near-clear tomato concoction that was like liquid joy. The presentation was divine: dry ice had been pumped into the glass and entrapped there by a conical biscuit topped with a sculptural piece of pureed tomato.

The next cocktail was called a Bohemian. I don’t remember what was in it apart from maple syrup and bourbon. A LOT of bourbon. It was during the consumption of this beveridge that I became very loud and table-thumpy, and Jen began to dissolve into what would be several fits of giggles. We are not ordinarily that cheap a pair of  drunks, honest. But I do remember ever so clearly what was in the dishes that accompanied these tumblers of pure pancakey bourbon, because it was the best part of the meal for me. A gorgeous mushroom risotto with a generous drizzling of tarragon sauce (TARRAGON! In vegetarian cooking, where it is so very rarely utilised! I fairly swooned, I did). Jen pretty much had to stop me from licking the plate, because apparently this is not the done thing when one is eating fancy. She herself received a pork and bacon floater, a little pie which was served with a test tube of pea soup. I loved the waitress’s advice to poke a hole in the pie and then pour the soup into it, which as she promised resulted in a pie volcano!

Fourth course! Umm…well, let’s blame all the bourbon for my poor memory of this one. The cocktail was a Six-Penny Crank, and I believe it had whisky in it and was very pleasantly soothing after the flavoursome risotto. I wish I did remember what was in it because it’s probably the one I would most like to replicate at home. Served with it was three cheese pieces toothpicked on rye bread with pickles and some kind of relish. This was really the only forgetable dish of the night, then again I don’t particularly like pickles or condiments with my cheese, and I kind of just bolted them down because at this point I was very aware that the food was doing nothing to prevent the alcohol doing its job, and was feebly attempting to stop the inevitable.

Last stop, dessert! A Ramos Gin Fizz was the closing drink, and at first I was all “You’ve mixed cream and egg white with gin? You fiends! That’s a spoiling of good innocent gin that never deserved such a fate!” But I should have been more trusting – it was like a delicious milkshake (I was quite saddened the next day to realise that me and Jen had both been far too gone to start doing ‘I drink your milkshake!’ impressions. An opportunity lost!), topped with a marachino cherry, which really just made my day. Combine that with a chocolate orange mousse and I don’t think you could have found two happier, drink-sodden skillets that night.

So keep cafe vue in mind for a special night out; I doubt you’ll be disappointed. I will warn you though, the food is in small portions and as I mentioned above will not prevent you getting thoroughly sloshed on the strong cocktails, so possibly be prepared to do as me and Jen did afterwards and get yourselves a nice injection of pure potato at Lord of the Fries to soak up your tipsyness (and that last sentence proves succinctly why I don’t eat at these high-end places all the time – class I am not).  

Also, it looks like Michael and Cindy from Where’s the Beef sampled this very menu recently too! You can read their account here: http://herestheveg.blogspot.com/2009/02/february-20-2009-cafe-vue-friday.html

You know the drill by now. Hayley’s seen lots of previews. Here are her opinions. With links to the actual trailers this time so you know what the buggering blazes I’m on about.

The Boat That Rocked

It is a well known fact amongst my friends that I hate Richard Curtis movies with an unadulterated fury, pure and unbridled. I even hate Love Actually, which is apparently tandamount to shovelling puppies into a furnace. And yet, even though my filmic track record with Mr Curtis is deep into minus marks territory, I can be guaranteed to see his films as soon as they come out. Because the trailers always look like so much fun that I can’t help but to be lulled into a false sense of security, with a little voice in my head whispering tantalisingly, “Come on, you’re bound to love this one. Look at that caaaaaaaaaassssst.” And look at that cast indeed – Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Nick Frost, Rhys Darby – ridiculously talented and funny people. And the subject is illegal pirate radio stations in Britain in the 60’s. Sideburns everywhere! So I shall be trudging into the cinema on opening day, hoping against hope that Curtis has finally made a movie that I won’t want to kill myself during.

Look for yourselves! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQc3lO4JDs (really, if a lot of the movie involves Bill Nighy dancing around like that, I’ll be a happy woman)

Monsters Vs. Aliens

With such an amazing comedic voice cast lined up – Will Arnett, Hugh Laurie, Reese Witherspoon, Rainn Wilson, Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd, STEPHEN MOTHERFUCKING T. COLBERT (as the President, fittingly enough) – this movie better be so goddamn awesome that I end up spontaneously combusting into my popcorn from joy. Using the trailer as a guide, signs are pointing towards an explody outcome. 

I can’t seem to find an internet version of the trailer I’ve seen where the audio is actually in sync with the visuals, but I’m sure you’ll deal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipNYLBnv6Dg

I also like this one ‘cos it has more Stephen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHv0JMo6puo

Coraline

I am guaranteed to eat up any film adaptation of the work of Neil Gaiman, and if you combine Gaiman with stop-motion animation directed by Henry Selick (dude who directed The Nightmare Before Christmas), and bundle it all into trailer as deliciously creepy as this one, it’s like presenting me with a most delicious filmic cake. A cake of AWESOME, shall we say.

Gather the children round and scare the bejeesus out of them here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO3n67BQvh0

Defiance

Lines from the trailer of this quite boss-looking WW2 thriller are repeated across my workplace with quite manic glee, particularly “Everyvun vill vork, there are no exceptions!” and “Ve vill protek you” (the last must be said while clutching someone’s shoulders and staring directly and most seriously into their eyes, thus upping the lols). Maybe it’s just Daniel Craig’s Polish accent that’s gotten everyone overexcited, although frankly it’s quite nice to see a historical film actually do accents and I’ll probably see it based on that little courtesy alone.

Ve vill become varriors! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIO8OI0JP50

The Pink Panther 2

WHY DOES THIS MOVIE EXIST?!?! I mean, jeebus, I’m not even much of a fan of the original Pink Panther movies, but if there’s one thing I rail against more than anything is Hollywood mining it’s past for remakes that should never have been made. And to do it twice! And this one doesn’t even have Kevin Kline in it, so really what’s the damn point? I’m not linking this one out of care and respect for your sensibilities.

Love The Beast

A documentary film about a Hollywood actor and his car. VANITY PIECE, OH LORD, STAY AWAY! I can hear the masses screaming in horror. Wait wait wait! Would it make a difference if I mentioned that the actor in question is Eric Bana, and that the car is a Ford XB Falcon coupe that he modded up over twenty-five years in order to race in some of the most dangerous car racing competitions in the world? That it’s a film about the love a simple car can inspire, especially if it is the centralising aspect of some great friendships? I don’t know if I’ve just been overly conditioned from watching far too many episodes of Top Gear and thusly find stories about men and their cars ultimately inspiring, but I haven’t been so moved by a trailer in ages. A trailer for a car movie! I’m as surprised as you are.

You can watch it here: http://www.lovethebeast.com.au/ (love love love the irony inherent in using Arcade Fire’s “No Cars Go” as part of the soundtrack).