Showing all posts tagged: entertainment
Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, return for Devil Wears Prada sequel
12 July 2024
Well, this will be something. A sequel is in the works for The Devil Wears Prada. By the time it is released, assuming production starts sooner rather than later, the follow-up will pick-up almost twenty-years after events of the original film. That’s a long time in the fashion world.
So far, Meryl Streep — as Miranda Priestly — and Emily Blunt — as Emily Charlton — have indicated interest in reprising their roles, but Anne Hathaway remains unsure about returning as Andy Sachs. An early outline of the storyline suggests Priestly will face off against a now successful Charlton.
We can only wait to see how Sachs fits into that dynamic, should Hathaway decide to be involved.
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Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, entertainment, film, Meryl Streep
The Tetris font, fun and games with typography
28 June 2024
Is there a version of Tetris that requires the player to try and spell words with the Tetris pieces, as they fall from the sky? If there is, I’ve not heard of it. But, that’s not saying much, as I don’t know a whole lot about gaming.
Anyway, Tetris Font, developed by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, may not be quite such a game, but you can still have fun typing in a word or name, and watching it take shape with the Tetris pieces.
There goes the morning…
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entertainment, games, typography
A book about ferns: the truth of the three-hour Gilligan’s Island cruise
24 June 2024
Gilligan’s Island was a slapstick American TV series which ran from 1964 to 1967. Despite its popularity, the show was cancelled shortly before filming of a fourth series commenced. I first saw reruns of Gilligan’s quite some time later. A number of movies, featuring most of the original cast, were made between 1978 and 1982. For all its goofiness, and ludicrously fanciful storyline, the show’s appeal has not waned, since production ceased over forty years ago.
Much of the allure lay in the way a group of mismatched passengers and crew were forced to get along after being marooned on an unchartered island, somewhere in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands. Among them were the wealthy and the working class, the chic and the collegiate. Most of the laughs were generated by the titular character, Gilligan, the well-meaning though bungling first mate, of the shipwrecked charter vessel, that all had been aboard.
But the premise of Gilligan’s Island, about seven people setting off on what was meant to be three-hour cruise, has been a constant source of speculation. And conspiracy theories. For instance, why was the millionaire, Thurston Howell III, carrying a briefcase full of cash? Further, why did he board the charter vessel with dozens of suitcases of clothing? And what of the professor? Why on earth was he on a fun cruise with a cache of scientific paraphernalia?
I wrote about this topic in 2008, after reading an in-depth exposé by Gilligan’s fan, and writer, Adam-Troy Castro, published on the no longer online SFF Net website. I’m glad I posted a number of excerpts from Castro’s article, in my piece, as they may be all that’s left of the original article.
But, long story short, no one aboard the S.S. Minnow, the shipwrecked charter boat, was out on any three-hour cruise. Howell wanted to cross into international waters, and make a big drug buy. That explains the cash he was carrying. The professor meanwhile, had brought analysis equipment with him, so he could check the contraband was the real deal. Everyone else on the Minnow had their not so wholesome reasons for being there.
Although my post is sixteen-years old, it still comes up in search engines results, which says a lot about the enduring popularity of Gilligan’s Island, together with the intrigue of the show’s peculiar premise. And then the other day, during my weekly login to Facebook (FB), an article about the professor, posted on the Classic Stars FB page, popped up in my feed. If you’re a fan, it’s well worth a read (and I don’t think you need to be a FB member), but this is possibly the most salient sentence:
The Professor’s backstory identifies him as Roy Hinkley (though his actual name is rarely mentioned during the series), a high-school science teacher who was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His principal expertise was as a botanist, whose purpose in joining the ill-fated voyage that stranded the castaways was to write a book to be titled “Fun With Ferns”.
So there we have it. The professor was not on board the charter vessel so he could test the authenticity of goods Howell was allegedly buying, somewhere on the open sea. The great big mystery can finally be laid to rest. The professor was there researching a book about ferns. Plants, not illicit drugs. Nor was anyone else, therefore, up to no good.
Maybe.
How though does going on a three-hour cruise, where nary a fern is to be seen, with an excess of laboratory equipment no less, help in the writing of such a book? Oh no: we’re by no means anywhere near getting to the bottom of what was really happening on this “three-hour cruise”…
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entertainment, humour, television
Can you use Vison Pro in a group or social setting?
14 June 2024
Or when snuggled up on the sofa, say watching a movie, with your better half?
I feel isolated when watching media, and it’s also much harder to snack and get cozy.
This is a point — raised by Hacker News/Y Combinator member archagon — and is not something I’d thought of, in regards to the whole process of using mixed-reality headsets. Since I don’t do this — use devices like Vision Pro — all that often, I wouldn’t know what this sort of experience might be like.
But maybe I’d put the headset aside, at such a time.
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entertainment, film, technology
Pub Choir gather nineteen thousand people to sing Africa by Toto
18 April 2024
From time to time, a few years ago now, I found myself walking passed a bar called The Dock (Facebook page), on Monday evenings. The bar, located in the inner Sydney suburb of Redfern, was host to something I’d not witnessed at a watering hole before: everyone singing.
And, as far as I could tell, without musical accompaniment. I later learned these sessions were called the Sea Shantys. They were clearly a drawcard for the bar, as every time I went passed at least, there seemed to be standing room only inside.
To the best of my knowledge, given I’ve not been over that way recently, these singalongs still continue, recent pandemic lockdowns notwithstanding.
Short wonder then Australian community organisation Pub Choir, was able to gather close to nineteen thousand people, from all across Australia, to perform a rendition of Africa, the 1982 hit by American band Toto, in August last year. See what you think. It ain’t half bad, if you ask me.
Yep: it’s gonna to take a lot to drag me away from you…
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Trailer for Heartbreak High second series, airing 11 April 2024
1 April 2024
The first episode of season two of Sydney set, Australian high school drama, Heartbreak High, goes to air on Thursday 11 April 2024. This is a day fans of the rebooted show (which aired in 2022), and indeed the original 1990’s series, will have marked on their calendars.
Check out the trailer. It looks like Sydney based activist Danny Lim has a cameo at some point in the second series. Anyone who’s in Sydney on any sort of regular basis has been seen Lim, pacing the streets, with one of his sometimes controversial sandwich board signs.
In other news, it occurs to me that Heartbreak High makes my high school days, which had their moments (well, one or two…), seem positively sedate in comparison. Maybe that was something to do with the high school I went to though.
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entertainment, television, trailer, video
Tilda Cobham-Hervey cast as Esme in The Dictionary of Lost Words play
19 September 2023
Adelaide based Australian actor Tilda Cobham-Hervey will take the lead role of Esme, in the stage adaptation of The Dictionary of Lost Words, based on the 2020 novel of the same name, written by Australian author Pip Williams.
Set at the beginning of the twentieth century in the British city of Oxford, The Dictionary of Lost Words is a fictionalised recounting of the story behind the publication of the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Spanning several decades, the story is narrated by Esme, the daughter of one of the dictionary’s lexicographers.
Last November, the State Theatre Company of South Australia announced they were working with Jessica Arthur to bring Williams’ novel to the stage, which opens on Friday 22 September 2023, in the South Australian capital. After a three week season, the show moves to Sydney, for a season of about seven weeks at Sydney Opera House, from Thursday 26 October 2023.
Cobham-Hervey is both a screen and stage actor. Past film credits include 52 Tuesdays, Hotel Mumbai, and I Am Woman, while previous stage roles include Things I Know to Be True and Vale.
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Australian literature, books, entertainment, Pip Williams
The Weekend by Charlotte Wood adapted for stage at Belvoir St Theatre
14 August 2023
A stage adaptation of Australian author Charlotte Wood’s 2019 novel, The Weekend, opened in Sydney on Saturday 5 August 2023. I read a few months ago that a production company had bought the film rights, but I didn’t know about the stage adaptation.
Much of the dark humour permeating the novel was voiced through the internal monologue of the characters, something I hope is carried over somehow in the dramatic adaptations.
If you’re in Sydney, the show is on until Sunday 10 September 2023, at the Belvoir St Theatre.
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Australian literature, Charlotte Wood, entertainment
You Already Know, the new single from Jacoténe
10 August 2023
Jacoténe, the Melbourne based Australian soul and pop singer, whose vocals reminds more than a few people of Amy Winehouse, has released a new single, You Already Know. This a year after she won Triple J’s Unearthed High with her song I Need Therapy.
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A history of the Beastie Boys as hip hop turns 50 this year
10 August 2023
One for fans of erstwhile New York City hip hop act, the Beastie Boys, a write up from 2015 by Don Condon, music editor at Double J.
As well as being one of the world’s great hip hop groups, the Beastie Boys’ evolution also happens to be one of the scene’s most fascinating.
As well as bringing hip hop to a wider mainstream audience, the Beasties can also be credited for opening up the genre’s horizons, fusing in everything from alt-rock and sample-based psychedelics to punk ferocity.
And they did all with a sense of adventure, fun, and camaraderie.
So, how did a bunch of white kids playing ramshackle hardcore find themselves at the forefront of a cultural revolution?
And tomorrow, Friday 11 August, is a red-letter day for fans of the genre, being the fiftieth birthday of hip hop, which emerged at a party in NYC borough, The Bronx, on Saturday 11 August 1973.
Happy birthday hip hop.
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