Weddings, Unitarians, Work and Study, Aboriginal Camp, V for Vendetta, Memage

[tcpip]

thorfin's and seedy_girl's wedding at the Fairfield ampitheatre yesterday was a delight. Attended with caseopaya and her friend Karin who was engaging in a three-day holiday from Perth. Chatted with a bundle of old friends and then went out to a local with trayce, Nick, bar_bar_ella, kits_the_dm, and proceeded to drink an excessive amount.

Following morning I was most unwell to put it mildly. I missed the bus to the Church literally by 60 seconds, so I had to take a taxi. Despite looking and feeling like death warmed up, I conducted the service and, upon discovering half way through that Andrew Chalmers was unable to make it (struck down with the 'flu) I had to improvise, repeating a prior presentation on The Future of the Human Species. However it turns out that despite the fact that presentation was given some eighteen months ago, our radio producer had used it recently. What to do? An impromptu interview on the life of famous Unitarian-Universalist and inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee. Immediately after that I was slotted in to lead the discussion at the Church philosophy group on the economic virtues of land-tax under the title of "Common Wealth or Stolen Wealth?". Just to continue the roller-coaster day, we also had a session of GURPS Australian Noir, which involved brain sucking aliens from beyond the stars.

Work was tiring this week. Have delved far too deeply into the innards of MS-SQL server, learning about things I never thought I would have to worry about. Spent far too much time trying to work out how to do animated GIFs with The Gimp. I'm really not a graphics-orientated person in case no-one's noticed. Oh, and I've enrolled for semester 3 for CCNA and for a Microsoft Certified Professional course at NMIT.

Wrote to the City of Melbourne this week urging them not to forcible disband the aboriginal camp in King's Domain. Prime Minister Howard is worried it will end up like the Canberra Aboriginal embassy. An hour after sending the letter out organisers of the Black GST circulated it to their members are a pro-forma example.

Saw V for Vendetta on Wednesday with caseopaya, kremmen and dukeofmelbourne. Thought very highly of it and quite liked the inclusion of contemporary themes. Alan Moore's criticisms are, in my opinion, overly harsh.

Oh, and apparently I'm in the top 0.12% of livejournal users which is quite a surprise. I feel very honoured. After all, gentle readers, I wouldn't be able to do it without you.

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Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nightflower_/]

I saw V for Vendetta on Saturday arvo @ Chadstone *shudder* but I really enjoyed it. I thought the filmmakers were very true to the graphic novel, right down to some of the shots and the way they were framed. I really believe this story could be pre-empting our world's dystopian future... :(

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I must confess I haven't read the graphic novel (heck, what am I saying? I read the series comics, dammit) since about 1989.

There was a sense in which the government was too nasty. Far better to propose a dystopia (keeping in mind a dystopia is a flawed utopia) where there are real benefits for the overwhelming majority of the population. This was hinted at (e.g., the crises in the United States), but not made sufficiently explicit. Lots of order, material wealth and so forth would have been nice.

Anyway, it was still a great film and clearly requires multiple viewings as well. We all picked up different things in the subtext which is a good sign of suggesting a multi-layered narrative. I like that.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nightflower_/]

This was a Hollywood film however, and there have to be heroes and villains, which in Hollywood is often played out as extremes (because the viewing public are stupid, and won't get subtleties, right?!).

When I saw this thing, I immediately thought of the film Terminator, and what was birthed from the chaos of world disorder (as opposed to dystopia). There was something very similar about the scene where V emerges from the flames...

[zey.livejournal.com]

My most recent reading of the graphic novel was about a year back (a borrowing from a local public library, no less!) I really don't think Moore has a lot of just cause to be upset. I'm agreed with _nightflower_, they got the atmosphere right and did a decent job of translating it from comic to screen.

The changes to the base storyline were fairly minor as far as Hollywood goes. A few points were obviously cropped and condensed for time: Evey not being a prostitute but instead working for the studio where the second hit takes place. All up though, we were damned lucky to get the film out of a major studio at all, given its general themes and today's political climate. A less obvious totalitarian government parody would probably have got the cast and crew done rendered to an overseas torture camp for sedition.

I really liked the film on a number of levels: it'll be very thought-provoking for a lot of people, it was sweet seeing my favourite actor (John Hurt) going full circle in the genre from 1984's Winston Smith to V's totalitarian despot, and it's the first one in a loooong while that gave me the impulse to jump up and cheer at the end ;-).