"MAN, I SAW A DOLPHIN!" - VITO.

this past weekend me, pete, maher, jove, vito, and nicole went camping at a place near lake eildon, about 250km out of melbourne. it was the middle of winter and a week before exams, but we were all determined to brave the weather and just gut it out. it was a funny kind of story as to how we got there; through bad timing and other stuff going on, it had taken us four months to finally tell the world to get stuffed for a weekend and off we finally went.

i guess when it boils down to it, it was pretty much the same kinda thing we usually do (which is drink and goof around), but in a differnt place. but at the same time, it was more than that. it had been a while since we'd all hung out, just the five of us, and it was cool to just be in the middle of nowhere with good mates, a roaring fire, and some smooth booze.

heh if you recall, pete and i had made a trip to eildon for em's twenty-first last year, and our journey there was both death-defying as well as testing the limits our of sanity (and sobriety). so with the benefit of hindsight, we were able to get to the campsite with relative ease and set up the tents with the help of mr. landcruiser lights.

from then on we jsut drank and hung around, caught up with what was going on in each other's lives and just enjoyed doing nothing. so much had been happening back home that it was a nice releif to sit back and listen to the wind.

so thanks guys for making it a great weekend.

-LOki

JUST LIKE HEAVEN

4/5
stars mark ruffalo, reese witherspoon, jon heder

i was supposed to go see this film at the cinemas, but due to constant timetable clashes and just general laziness i never got round to it. so when it came out on dvd last week i decided to hire it. after "suddenly 30" i was a fan of mark ruffalo, and i do like reese witherspoon in small doses.

if you hadn't already gathered, the film is about a elizabeth (witherspoon), a young doctor who spends so much time at work that she doesn't realise her social life has been put on hold - not until she's in a car accident that renders her once perky body into nothing more than a weightless spirit.

in comes dave (ruffalo), a bummy kind of guy who moves into elizabeth's old apartment. after the initial encounter with the 'spirit', dave sets out to find out what happened to her and where she came from, and from then orwards the film takes some nice turns and funny experiences that eventually lead to the climax.

i had read a little about this film, and a lot of critics said this film was like a modern(er) day version of Ghost (with that peadophile guy from Donnie Darko) but i fail to see how they even make that comparison. no one was murdered, there was no conspiracy, nor was there any love triangle. ba-bum, sorry, no dice.

instead the film, much like all good romantic comedies mixes the perfect amount of light-hearted cheese, genuine funny bits, great line of supporting characters, and the tender ending where you just can't help by go, "Awwww!". mark ruffalo's performance is awesome; he looks genuinely disoriented, much like the persona of his character. reese witherspoon, while letting some of her "legally blonde" through, was a character which was hard to dislike. and as mentioned earlier, supporting cast provided a believable, yet irreverntly humours backdrop for the story.

i give this film 4/5 because it was one of those films that got more than a "Awwww!" from me. it made me think more about the nature of life and love and all that, and how sometimes when unexpected shit happens, you just have to go with it. if you remember i wrote an article on the "romantic comedy formula", and therefore its not that hard to know where things will end in such films.

but even with the said, the conclusion isn't what really matters - its how the characters that get there that counts.

-LOki

"AWW, I WANT A SHARK!" - NICOLE.

today was a little different.

i went fishing in the morning with vito, nicole, vito's brother, and two of nicole's friends who were visiting from singapore. vito had sms'ed last night around 10ish and asked if i wanted to go, but having a constitutional law tutorial later that day and it being close to exams, i wasn't sure if i should.

but alas, i decided to go anyway and had an awesome time. i thought i'd get to sleep early so i could get up at 5am and head to frankston, but that was never going to happen. instead chow came round and while he did his carbon fibre ladder proposal, i did some equity readings - and realised that i've got plenty more to do.

so anyways, it hit around 4am when i decided to stop, but by then that only gave me an hour to sleep before having to get up again. so i didn't sleep.

i drove round to vito's then to frankston and got there around 7am with the sun just starting to creep over the horizon. our skipper (Frank?) then took us 20 minutes into port phillip bay where we started to fish. the morning started slow and as the sun came up there were still no fish in our buckets. then nicole caught the first, and second.... fourth and so on. by the end of it all we had all caught our fair share of fish; vito even bagged a gummy shark, and i caught a 'schoolie', which is about the same as a gummy but with teeth.

the sea air made a me a little nauseous but i managed to keep my lunch in my stomach.

so anyway, it was a different kind of day and right now i'm at uni in a corps lecture. its actually one of the few lectures that i look forward to every week.

i'm gonna go home and crash and prob wake up at 10pm.

point being, do something different. it helps with the monotony of the everyday.

-LOki

RETRO CARTOONS - THE POWER IS YOURS!

it's been a while since i've posted, and i've yet to finish my previous one about the lion king. but here's something that's been on my mind for a while - old-school cartoons. that right, captain planet, widget, voltron, he-man, thundercats, silverhawks - all that.

i've been listening to the captain planet opening theme for a few days straight now, and i think my family are getting quite pissed off. but hey, screw em. i've decided to try and come up with a script/story for a movie of captain planet, but we'll see how far that goes.

i remember a while back vito and i were talking about something along these lines.

in other news, i've added a link to my flixster site, brought to my attention by sandra. its basically a place where you can post movie reviews and rate them in a few easy steps. to check it out, click on the link and it'll take you there. woohoo.

i should be sleeping.

-LOki

LIKE 1995 ALL OVER AGAIN

on wednesday i went to see the broadway musical of THE LION KING and it was amazing. it was like watching that film for the first time again, seeing the same kind of story but from an entirely new perspective.

my favourite scenes were the stampede (which i had my doubts about its translation for the stage, but it was executed perfectly), and the scene where mufasa appears in the clouds and speaks to the grown up simba.

special mention goes to the kids to who played the young lion cubs who really put that innocent liveliness into their performances. the guy who played the lead role had a suprisingly awesome singing voice, and rafikki was a woman!

i'll be going to china at the end of the year and hopefully seeing it again in their shanghai performances. there are still tickets for sale at the box office of the regent theatre. check out their website for more info.

-LOki