Chris

people walk down a pathway into a sunny park filled with stalls and more people

two photographs of a music stage with a signer for hard of hearing people, sign-dancing the music, and two photographs of community stalls, one for ‘Prostate Pride’ and one for ‘LGBTQI+ Stroke Research’

#AlexandraGardens #Midsumma Carnival. Annual opportunity for sunburn/sunstroke as the urge to reduce clothing fights increased solar exposure. Nice to see health issues are being addressed, and fantastic danceterpretation on the DJ stage!

two men waiting for food, and a detail of a painting showing a woman’s hand, gold bangle on the wrist, resting on blue fabric

Pre-#Midsumma Carnival lunch at #YoungAndJackson, Chloé and her (slave?) bangle nearby.

two men sit in a bar

another two men sit in a bar

the first two men sit in a bar, one ducks

#latergram Saturday night drinks at #Mollies and then at the #No86 - where is everyone?!!

two film stills, one of a woman lifting a large black veiling garment, the other of a seated man looking at us out of the darkness

#Beamafilm A Hero, 2021. Asghar Farhadi shows how no good turn remains unpunished. In a dusty town near reminders of Iran’s glorious past, an ordinary man’s feeble attempts to be decent rebound in a series of setbacks, especially when he’s unwillingly pushed into being the hero he isn’t.

film poster showing, above the name “Freaky Tales”, an inverted triangle of people ready to fight.

#Netflix Freaky Tales, 2024. Four interconnected stories set in 1987 Oakland (poorer part of San Francisco) mixing large doses of music and cartoonish ultraviolence. The cast is diverse & attractive (including stars) but it never rises to something meaningful.

two huge gasses of clear liquid with ice and lemon; through one there are glimpses of a man

Post walk reward: gin & tonic from a fancy gin & tonic glass (size of a small bucket!)

a coastal canal at low tide

two photographs of a dog tugging hard at her leash

two photographs of a white and black dog in longish grass

three photographs of two unusual houses - a 1980s-style one with a large barrel vault, and a semi-detached rebuilt in a mixture of materials with a monolith roof following the planning sun diagram - and a pair of small totem poles next to someone’s garage

Walking Xena along the #Elwood Canal, which I only just discovered is actually called the Elster Creek!

two photographs of an old classical building with a silhouetted lamp

an old theatre lit up in red at night

an old decorated brick wall and gatehouse to a mansion

part of a fairly new apartment block and an old shop painted in soft green as a house

#melbournelife architecture: #ParliamentHouse (1855-91, Peter Kerr); #PrincessTheatre (1886, William Pitt); Dodgshun House gatehouse #Fitzroy, St Mary Mackillop’s birthplace; CF Row apartments #Fitzroy (2017, Woods Bagot) in the 1929 CF Rojo furniture factory; c.1863 shop now painted like an artwork

two men surrounded by a virtual cornucopia of real food

two men surrounded by a virtual cornucopia of real food

two men surrounded by a virtual cornucopia of real food

two men surrounded by a virtual cornucopia of real food

Recent eating out roundup: #TwoBirds, #SoJo, #MondoDiPasta, #ProudMary, #Addict, #Arcadia, #Piccolina, #TheBirmingham, #Archies

five television programme stills of strange dummy-like people and a man climbing up a changing stair

#DailyMotion #AGhostStoryForChristmas The Room in the Tower, 2025. Gatiss adapts EF Benson’s 1912 ‘spook story’ effectively reset in the London Blitz with flashbacks to gentler, terrifying times. Very effective indeed.

television programme still of two men in darkness facing us, one slightly behind the other

#YouTube #AGhostStoryForChristmas Number 13, 2006. Has a BBC 1990s sheen but pretty effective, as a fairly unpleasant academic slowly earns our sympathies as he blunders towards things that go bump in the night (- and laugh!)

three film stills, one showing a woman walking bouncily down a street then two of her in shadowy house views

fake film poster with two film stills and layout in 1970s style

#Brollie The House of the Devil, 2009. Retro-70s/80s horror from Ti West: menaced-babysitter/creepy-old-house/satanic-panic tropes but with unexpected twists. A good time for all (except the young women, of course). Even the Grand Guignol ending is on point. Lovely unofficial poster by Scott Hopko.

😉

three photographs, one showing a brick arch with timber gates, the others of views into the yard behind

Rare opportunity to see the side entry & walls of the former #NicholsonSt Cable Tram Engine House, on the corner of #GertrudeSt (1887, Alexander Davidson) - in nearly 20 years I don’t remember seeing the side gates open. As expected the side wall is spectacularly unspectacular.

part of an expressive painting of a man’s head, with the text “Art & Culture / Van Gogh”

#Beamafilm Van Gogh, An Artist and his Work, 2018. Nice little doco where Malcolm Hossick recounts the painter’s life, makes gentle but astute comment on his art, and reads excerpts from his letters.

three film stills showing people dressed like ancient Romans, one in purple with a dagger in his chest and a surprised expression

four film stills showing people around an attractive young woman, and six young women in white gowns

three film stills showing groups of people dressed as ancient Romans, and part of the credits saying “ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY BY TALBOT ROTHWELL FROM AN ORIGINAL IDEA BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE”

two film posters for films about Cleopatra, one showing a woman reclining on a bed with two men at her side, and the other almost identical but parodying the first

#tubi Carry On Cleo, 1964. 10th Carry On is a spoof of mega-flick Cleopatra, using its original sets & costumes (& poster before a court case!) In lavish surroundings the team rush around crazily, delivering effective humour, smut & innuendo. And puns: “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me!”

four photographs showing part of a shop awning falling off and notices taped to the pavement

“Beware of the awning above!” #GertrudeSt - it was being fixed the next day:

film poster in Stalinesque Soviet style with heroic heads against a red flag; below small figure form crowds around a coffin

#Stan The Death of Stalin, 2017. Rather gorgeous satire set in 1953 Russia but with unapologetically British actors, sending up the outlandish consequences of authoritarian hero worship. Unafraid to mix humour with truly repulsive casual violence.

two film stills, one of an emaciated half-human in a field, the other of three people crossing a river with ropes

#PrimeVideo 28 Years Later, 2025. A thoughtful sequel to the 2002 film, with survivors getting by and virus victims slowly evolving. Some astonishing sequences and a batshit crazy ending that must be setting up a sequel!

a monkey toy looks upsidedown between legs

#PrimeVideo The Monkey, 2025. Showing this showy little shocker to Hilby, where OTT ultra-violence is part of the ultra-black humour.

film poster of a man in uniform surrounded by body-shaped red silhouettes on a yellow background

#HBOMax Mickey 17, 2025. Bong Joon Ho continues his philosophical adventures and human-creature interactions with a tour de force dual performance from Robert Pattinson. Toni Collette is a scene stealer. Lots of thoughtful fun.

cartoon showing three figures on a pink planet

#Kanopy Lesbian Space Princess, 2025. Gloriously unashamed queer action sci-fi animation from South Australia, bursting with joy and colour. Sadly the effect is diminished by a lack of variety across the 87 minutes; it would have been better even only 15mins shorter.

two young women run from a staircase, pursued by a multitude of people

#Stan 28 Weeks Later, 2007. Sequel that’s pretty good, even if not reaching the dreadful heights of its predecessor, but suffering from the inevitable problem of ‘almost everyone I empathise with will die horribly’.

a man dressed as Santa Claus swings an axe at someone’s head

#Tubi Silent Night, Deadly Night, 1984. Would-be psychological slasher: a young man with PTSD & mistreatment as a child is triggered by images of Santa Claus; when pressed into performing at work… he snaps. Fairly silly, though the tiny budget is used well. Started on #Plex but too many ads.

a woman scapes a wall while holding a book in her other hand

#Beamafilm The Art of Preserving Art 1:1 Revealing our Memory, 2009. Spanish doco (in various Madrid galleries) where an omnipotent narrator drones on, mansplaining about restoration principles, making it very, very boring. I didn’t bother with eps 2+3.

a man wears a red-and-white top in Sydney; another man wears it in a cafe in Melbourne; then two people wear it in Melbourne

I saw this Japanese football (“soccer”) top in Sydney and ordered it then and there in the cafe. But now, a few months later, I’ve seen it twice in the wild in Melbourne in a week… 👀😱

a man in woodland looks through binoculars towards us

#Kanopy #AGhostStoryForChristmas A View from a Hill, 2005. Pleasant revival of the festive creeps, and back to MR James’ gently oblique horrors where peeking into the past isn’t appreciated by those already there.

a man and woman look respectably at a stone effigy in a church, a third figure stands behind

#Kanopy #AGhostStoryForChristmas Woman of Stone, 2024. On her deathbed E Nesbit narrates a story of misogyny across the ages. Superior, and yet again impeccably cast and performed.

three men stare at a covered object in an Egyptian mummy case

#Kanopy #AGhostStoryForChristmas Lot 249, 2023. Arthur Conan Doyle gets the Mark Gatiss treatment with an archetypal Egyptian touch - on your throat. A Mr Holmes makes a cameo.

a woman with candles and a man behind bars

#Kanopy #AGhostStoryForChristmas Count Magnus, 2022. MR James via Mark Gatiss and a nice little frissony cautionary tale; what did James have against curiosity?! Jason Watkins is excellent as a bumptious researcher.