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January 08, 2006

Little Fish

Sets in Sydney's Little Saigon (Cabramata), Litte Fish follows the collapsing world of Tracy (Cate Blanchett) is an ex-Heroin junkie who has been clean for the past 4 years trying to make ends working in a local Cabramata video shop. Tracy brother's Ray is a small time drug dealer, crippled by a tragic accident 4 years ago. Lionel (Hugo Weaving) is Tracy step father whom she loved dearly, an ex-football star who got hooked on the needle. His gay boyfriend, Bradley Thompson, a big time drug dealer is retiring and cutting off ties with him. Soon he will not get his fix for free anymore.

The family survive through the sheer will of Tracy's mum, Janelle (Noni Hazlehurst), who drives her for her morning swim, to work and picks her up. Janelle lives in a constant fear for Tracy to go back in her old way. And rightly so where Heroin is being traded so easily in the street of Cabramata. The temptation is always there and Janelle knows it.

Tracy has been offered a partnership in the shop by her boss but because of her past the banks are turning down her loan. Depressed not being able the secure the money she needed, ex-boyfriend drug-dealer, now suit-wearing, Jonny (Dustin Nguyen) come back to her life after 4 years absence in Canada. Tracy's entire life is put through a whirlwind which can only ends in a tragedy.

Little Fish is a very dark and depressing movie, but at the same time celebrates love, family and survival. This movie is very hard to watch, it's certainly no "Fun with Dick and Jane", it makes no apology in the Heroin trade and usage in Sydney.

Cate Blanchett put out an amazing performance as a bleak but potentially explosive Tracy. Hugo Weaving is almost unrecognisable as Lionel, haggard and rambles. Noni Hazlehurst is superb as Tracy and Ray's mum. While Dustin Nguyen's attempt of Australian accent is respectable although a bit confused. The movie tries to explain this by sending him away in Vancouver for the past 4 years.

It's very hard to watch Little Fish. I watched it at Govinda's where in the beginning a bunch of girls were giggling and were making really loud noise and jokes. All were silenced barely 20 minutes through the movie. It is very heart-wrenching to watch how Tracy and Janelle had to cope with the issues that they are dealing with. In the beginning of the movie, Tracy and her best friend Laura (Lisa McCune) went to the school reunion to the wall of smiling faces title "In Memoriam". Tracy stopped to reflect at the wall, it was never explained what happened to these kids, but it gives the implication that all died in drug related incidents.

It is refreshing to know that some film-makers still dare to touch the drug issue without glorifying nor chastises the drug use. I couldn't ask for a better movie to start the year. Highly recommended 4/5 stars.


Little Fish is still playing at Govinda's, Melbourne's Dendy, and will be shown on the 18th Jan session of Starlight Cinema. St. George Open Air Cinema will also screen Little Fish, but ticket has been sold out.

Posted by vhadiant at 10:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 01, 2006

Fatboy Slim Live on Bondi Beach

Wicked! Last night was the best NYE for me. Fatboy Slim rocked Bondi Beach in front of 15,000 revellers. When I heard that Fatboy Slim was coming for NYE 2006 I said to myself this is one party that I absolutely have to go. So we had the troops rounded, tickets bought and off we go to Fatboy Slim.

The three of us came in at about 10pm, I reckon there were already 5000 - 7000 people inside. A large section of Bondi beach was fenced and lots of cops and security guards patrolling the possible intrusions points of the fence. Fuzzy was not going to risk a break-in like the one at Mobile Home a few years ago.

The weather was hot and muggy, but it didn't stop all 15,000 of us to dance our butt off. Although by the end of the night I was feeling really filthy covered with sweat - mine and others! Ah well can't really help it for a big party like this.

The first thing people must have noticed as soon as they arrived at Bondi Beach was the massive light beams coming out from the main stage. The stage itself was amazing, I think Fuzzy had done a fantastic job with it. The party itself was not on the beach, we were on the slope, the grass area just before the beach. The main stage was on the beach so you were looking down to the stage, which was a very good for you neck. Well not that quite down for the people right in front since the stage was a bit high.

It was a a big and elaborate stage with a lot of lights and covered with LED display. Imagine the *entire* stage, from top to all the way to the bottom was covered with LED display. The camera often went to sweep the audience and display them on the stage, it gives the impression that Fatboy was mixing the tracks floating on top of thousands of people - that's awesome. Hard to imagine I would think, but if you were there ... damn it's cool.

The supporting DJs on the main stage (Alan Thompson and James Taylor) did a very good job as openers for Fatboy. I can't say anything about the DJs on the other stage since we hardly checked it out. The two times we were there the stage was empty but for 20-30 people. Must be tough for the DJs there. James Taylor's last half hour set was impressive, I remembered thinking this was a good lead up to Fatboy Slim.

Midnight was nearing and the crowd was restless. James Taylor just dropped his bomb tune just before midnight the party atmosphere is everywhere. We were waiting for Norman Cook himself, but not before the fireworks. At 12 after the obligatory countdown by the crowd, fireworks lit up Bondi Beach. It was nothing in comparison the main fireworks in the city but hey it's better than nothing. The stage at this point was completely dark.

Nearing the end of the fireworks a familiar tune from Underworld (Born Slippy) kicked in. Slowly at first but picking up quickly. Seconds later the familiar words "Right Here, Right Now" came up and the crowd went wild. It seemd that everyone was screaming their heads off. The "right here, right now" looped back for over 1 minute. The LED on the stage was displaying a massive RIGHT HERE - RIGHT NOW sign. At this time everyone was chanting "right here, right now" and that's how Fatboy started his 3 hours set.

The next 3 hours of Fatboy was amazing, it wasn't the underground or progressive or cutting edge electronic music. It wasn't meant to be like that, it was just simply an amazingly fun party set. It's mixed of breaks, house, top 40 tunes, his old tunes and his new tunes. All in all it's pretty much mainstream music, this unfortunately will disappoint people who are expecting a mixing God. But he isn't, Fatboy Slim is not a scratch artist nor does he's a good mixer, Fatboy is a party DJ, has always been and will always be - and damn good one at that. The entertainment is not limited to only his set but his actual performance itself. It was a delight watching a fun DJ like Fatboy Slim. A lot of DJs just stuck their heads between their headphones and keep mixing as if there's no one outside his little deck.

At about 1:10AM ish, I felt totally wrecked and told the others I needed a break. Beside it was a good timing since he slowed down a bit, suggesting people to take a break. DJs do that, slows down in the middle of the set preparing for the finale. So we walked around, chilled out a while and filled in our water bottle, James even had a chance to eat half a sandwich. A fair bit of people had the same idea with us and we can see that the crowd was thinning out a bit in the main arena. We were back about 30 minutes later, just in time for Billie Jean. The next 1 half hour continued to be the best entertainment I've had so far. I was particularly impressed with the "Praise You" mix. Probably the highlight of his set.

Towards the end though I was a bit disappointed. In the last 15 minutes I think he tried to put too many songs in a very short time. He mixed and changed and mixed again too quickly for us to enjoy the songs. It feels like moving backward and forward on your CD trying to find the song that you wanted to hear but you never ended up finding it. Regardless, I think Fatboy put one hell of a show and the fact it's NYE also put everyone in a festive mode creating a superb atmosphere. Fatboy Slim, Bondi Beach, 15,000 people in a good mood, you can't go wrong :) Fatboy is known to throw the best parties in the world and this NYE 2006 @ Bondi Beach is no exception.

Update:

Track listing & torrent file are here. Seems that what I think back and forward from 1 song to another is just him mixing Gorrilaz lol :)

Update 2:
Grrh, InTheMix moved the photos around. Not happy Jan. Now it's here.

Posted by vhadiant at 02:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack