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Rubbermonsterfetishism
For all that is good and made of rubber
Descent part 2 (2009)
Ok, so what is the fucking point of this? This is the kind of movie that gives sequels bad names. Not that it actually is bad, as in Transformers 2 bad (A movie I still havent finished watching after two tries) but it's just so... useless. Not only does it follow the retarded ending of the american version, Descent 2 actually has an "twist"-ending that is so fundamentally idiotic that you just shake your head and almost wish you never saw the damn thing... anything for another sequel.
Well, I suppose we only have ourselves to blame. We wanted more of Neil Marshalls hideously frightening cavemutants, that is certain. But what the sequel does is unforgivable. The original movie has an all female cast of strong women that actually feels like a group of friend, women who know what they are doing but end up in hell anyway. Descent part 2 does it the other way by bringin in a group of nondescript climbers, a female cop who we know will live the longest because she has a photo of her children with her and a sheriff with an iq of about 60, engineered just for the plot to advance in ways that will make you groan. Yes, the only survivor of the american version is found alive, but hysterical and since one of the characters in the original was the daughter of a senator, the sheriff automatically thinks that she did it. He forces her to go down into the cave again through the tunnels of an old mine to find out what happened and before you can say "lack of imagination", they are all trapped and hunted by the same freaky creatures of the original. To make matters even more stupid, the filmmakers have included an extra large mutant, sort of like an end of the level boss in a computer game and that does not help the movie.
Actually, the movie isnt so bad. It has gore, claustrophobic cave tunnels and moves along at a decent enough pace. I was never bored, just frustrated of the characters stupid behaviour, and I would probably not hate it that much if it werent for that ending that just comes out of the blue. The original's ending is one of the more inspired and horrible ones I have ever encountered and I suppose that is why I'm judging this one so much harder. I have seen worse sequels, no doubt about it, and Descent part 2 offers up 90 fairly decent minutes but as a followup it is a travesty. I have to stop having high hopes for sequels, it's bad for me.
Upplagd av Jocke Andersson kl. 11:00 Inga kommentarer:
Etiketter: moviereview
Salvage (2006)
How about a horror version of Groundhog day? Made on the cheap with somewhat dull digital photography and uneven acting skills?
Claire Parker is on the way home from her dull extrajob at a gasstation when a stranger arrives to pick her up in her boyfriends car, telling her that he knows her boyfriend and that he told him to pick her up. Naturally she is suspicious, but lets him drive her home, a bit freaked by his weird behaviour. Naturally, he is the major psycho she believes him to be but doesnt realize that until he later breaks into her home and kills her. As this is Groundhog day without Bill Murray and and a budget lower than the catering of previously mentioned movie, Claire wakes up again at the gas station, believing it all to be a horrible dream. But then weird things start to happen, she sees the man from her dreams several times but no one believes her. The events of the next day doesnt follow the "dream" exactly but she still ends up being killed by the same man, waking up again. Events continue the same way over and over, with the mystery deepening every time, especially when she finds out that the man really is dead. What the fuck us going on?
Yes, this is very low budget movie with a cast of about six. Lauren Currie Lewis who plays Claire does a decent job in a role that mostly requires her to frown and show up those pretty blue bambie eyes but the rest of the cast are rather bland. Thank god the direction is better, with an interesting script moving along in a decent pace. The photography is as I mentioned earlier somewhat dull but on the other hand, it does actually suit the movie rather well, capturing that drabness that a small town can have, whether it's in Sweden or in the US. It all adds up to a twistending which actually is rather good, either you see it coming or not. I'm not really sure I can recommend it to everyone, a few people will probably be put off by the low budget part, but if you like your chills independent and your twists good, you just might like this.
Upplagd av Jocke Andersson kl. 08:00 1 kommentar:
The Fourth kind (2009)
One of the worst movies I have seen in my entire life is Olatunde Osunsanmis WIthIN aka The Cavern, a movie so crappy looking that I still wonder if there was some kind of error on my dvd. For some mysterious reason someone out there saw the movie and decided that, yes, we want to give this man 10 million dollars to make another movie. How stupid can you be?!
But, this actually paid off.
The Fourth kind is a mockumentary whose gimmick is that it claims to partray the truth by having the actors tell the audience that they are indeed actors, all while showing the "real" footage of the people involved in the story that actors intends to portray. This is a gimmick that works just fine, although I had my doubts in the beginning of the movie, and it slowly grows on you until about halfway where the story finally got you in its grip. Storywise though, the movie doesnt really have anything new to come up with, but the presentation makes it work.
So, what is the story then? Well, there's this little town in Alaska where there has been an awful lot of mysterious dissapearances. The movie follows a widowed psychologist (Milla Jojovich) who have been interviewing people about strange recurring dreams. When she hypnotises them they reveal a more horrible story, something that might be alien abductions. Of course, the local police refuse to be believe her but when the threat comes even closer, things get weird.
This is nothing new and it feels somewhat odd that the scary parts feels more supernatural than alien, but the concept works thanks to good actors and never revealing too much of whats going on. Another plus is that the movie looks incredibly good with gorgeous Bulgarian woods standing in for the Alaskan town. By the way, did you notice that Milla Jojovich lives in the exakt same house as the family in Wicked little things, the childzombie movie from a few years back? So, my opinion on Olatunde Osunsanmi is slightly raised now. The Fourth kind is a good little horror flick that will give you a buch of nice chills and is recommended viewing.
Robert Culp 1930-2010 RIP
Another icon has passed away.
I think I will watch a Cold nights death this evening, a movie I've wanted to see for a long time but never got around to.
Etiketter: RIP, Robert Culp
Because God tells me so (2007)
I am not gonna review this fine documentary on how the fundamentalist christians use the bible for gaybashing, but I am going to mention something I learned from it:
The same bible passage that says "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination." also says that it is an abomination eat shellfish, to wear garments of mixed fabrics and working on the sabbath. Still, a lot of people use that quote literally. This can only mean: Either they dont know what the passage really means because they are so busy obeying, they do not really understand any of it but their pastor tells them too or they are too caught up in their hate that they dont care. So much for a loving God.
My favorite little tidbit though, how horrible the content may be, was part of a deaththreat sent to the first openly gay Bishop in the Lutheran church and it tells me quite a bit of the person that wrote it.
Death to the faggits!
Upplagd av Jocke Andersson kl. 10:43 2 kommentarer:
Survival of the dead (2009)
Finally, George A Romero is back with another zombiemovie. I will admit I am a huge fan of his movies and have been waiting for this for a long time. So, is the master back with another great movie? Diary of the dead was a fine movie and the initial dissapointment that was Land of the dead was blown away when I recently watched it again. It shames me to say this, but this is Romeros worst by far.
So, what is wrong with this movie? The story is fine, with one of the soldiers that popped up in Diary of the dead now having his own movie, trying to escape the zombie apocalypse by going to an island outside the US coast where two Irish clans are duking it out over what to do with the undead. One side wants to destory them, the other save them just in case a cure arrives. An interesting plot but the problem here is that Romero never does anything interesting with this. The headhoncho of the the clan that wants to keep them alive still goes around shooting zombies in the head whenever he feels like it and the plot never gets anywhere. I get the feeling that huge chunks of story were cut out of it. To make matters worse, the movie is full of totally unfunny gags where a zombie appears out of nowhere to be dispatched in a "funny" sort of way, a practice that is repeated way too much. My girlfriend even asked me if we were watching some kind of slapstickmovie. My biggest gripe with SOTD though, is the fact that there is never any sense of doom or desolation, something Romero perfected in his earlier movies, especially Dawn and Day of the dead. Our characters just travel from place to place, never encountering more than a couple of zombies at a time, which is weird for a world where 50 million people becomes undead every day according to the introductory narration(or something like that. I dont remember exactly). Big dissapointment.
But, on the other hand, this is a George A Romero movie, which means that while it might have a huge number of flaws, it is still better than most movies of its ilk. Romero gets good performances out of his cast and the story (however truncated and flawed it might feel) is still way more interesting than most. Part of the reason that I was dissapointed with this movie was, as I stated earlier, the high expectations but Romeros story feels like a filler episode in a tv-series and has none of the desperation of his earlier zombiemovies. That is what I miss most.
SOTD is by no means a failure, just a bit mediocre which isnt forgivable when it comes to Romero. I am used to high quality from the man and when he produces something like this, well, I get dissapointed. I just might watch it again later to see if I will like it better then, just like Land of the dead but in the meantime, let us hope that his next movie will redeem him.
The Jail - A womans hell (2006)
So, what do we have here? All the ingredients we need for a good movie?
* An all female prison, with all the characters that belong in the genre. The evil warden, the sleazy doctor who always has a cigarette in his mouth, the lesbians, evil lesbian, the evil governor that likes to hunt women for sport. You know, the usual.
* Nudity. Tons of it. If you have a fetish for asian women, your head will explode while watching this.
* Gore. One unfortunate woman gets her tongue cut out and her breasts cut off. A decent amount of squibs. A head cut off and some more. The special effects are cheap but fun.
What else do you want? Well, a giant radioactive lizard would be nice, but it would be sort of hard to fit him into the plot. Bruno Mattei has fashioned a fun little flick, a throwback to the Italian exploitationmovies of the seventies of the eighties and though his budget is low (the prison seems to consist only of a yard, a cell and the showers), he makes the best of it. The story is cliched as hell, the acting is pretty bad (one of the evil characters sounds like William Shatner on heroin) and the dubbing truly awful, but we already knew it would be like that after seeing his other Phillipino movies, Island of the living dead and Zombies: The beginning. Mattei was a professional and the movie looks as good as it can. The movie is violent, sleazy and crammed full of so much nudity the filmmakers could muster. If thats how you like your movies, then you'll lap this up. Thank you Bruno and we all miss you.
Pig hunt (2008)
I always like a really nice try when it comes to movies, when the filmmakers at least try to do something special. Even though it turns out to be somewhat of a failure, you can sense that there is some talent behind the camera and movies like are usually entertaining. Pig hunt is a perfect example of a nice try.
A group of friends leave San Francisco and head out into the woods to hunt for some legendary giant boar that is supposed to roam the forest. They hook up with some fairly unfriendly rednecks who are also looking for the critter and soon it turns into a Jawsclone on land. Well, actually, I lied. It actually takes of into another direction, more Deliverance than Jaws actually. But then there's that really weird cult of hippies, consisting of a huge black guy and a dozen naked women that will sure that the plot will take of into another direction. Confusing? Not really once you watch the movie.
The plot plays out like a Jerry Gross produced remake of Deliverance with a couple of nasty creatures thrown into the mix and works just fine. The problem is that with such a sleazy story, there should be a hell of a lot of grue, and there isnt really that much. It actually feels pretty tame at times. There are a few violent deaths but with material like this you feel a bit ripped off. It doesnt really help that script never creates any decent characters to root for, so when the Deliverance parts come crawling you dont really care about the main characters, you just want to see more of the naked chicks. Well, there is actually one character that's not a major asshole and he gets a pretty brutal and undignified death so I guess that is some sort of compensation.
And that is why Pig hunt is a nice try. The filmmakers try hard but fail. The script has lots of fun ideas but never goes to the excesses the movie needs to be the grindhouse experience it wants to be. It is still a fun movie, well worth watching, but had potential for greatness. Maybe there is an unrated version out there?
Boogeyman (2005)
So, this little kid is afraid of the Boogeyman, believing him to hide in the closet. When his dad tries to reassure him that there is no such thing, he gets taken by something in the closet, never to be seen again. 15 years later, the kid is now grown up but is still afraid of the closet and wears a constant frown on his face, most likely because the actor, Barry Watson, did 196 episodes of Seventh heaven. When his mother (a pretty unrecognizable Lucy Lawless. I had to check with Imdb afterwards) dies he returns to his hometown to clean up the place or confront his fears or something. He meets a young girl carrying clippings of young children missing who asks him if there is a special reason why he is back. Yes, the Boogeyman is still there and turns out to be a pretty goofylooking cgithing, and the story is so generic that it could've come straight out of the Haunted house movies for dummies. I spent the first 45 minutes of the movie half sure that I had seen it before even though I know that I hadnt. It's that derivative.
But, to the filmmakers defense, the whole damn thing looks good and the scares are halfdecent. The New Zeeland locations are excellent and the house itself a perfect design for a horrormovie. It could've used some gore and tits to liven things up a bit, but on the other hand there is never really any time to get bored. Yes, you'd probably be better off watching the Ulli Lommel movie instead, or why not Boogens but on the other hand, you could also do a lot worse than this. Grade D for Decent but klichéd.
They dont come more goodlooking than this. Well, maybe Wall-E. But not by much. It's funny too.
AM1200 (2008)
Lovecraftadaptions are usually a very mixed bag and the most succesful ones are based on stories that are easier to adapt or they work because to tend to differ a bit from the material. AM1200 is not actually an adaption, the material is an original script but the material is very Lovecraftian and works just fine in that old school EC way with a hilarious, yet groovy twistending. This is fun and well shot stuff which should be watched by anyone who likes good horror. The story is classic, yet enticing. A man is on the run after embezzling money (and causing the suicide of a colleauge) and heads out in the wilderness, just fleeing. Somewhere in the desert he finds a channel on the radio where a strange voice asks for help. Soon after he takes a wrong turn and ends up on a barely used forest road and wouldnt you know it, his car breaks down just in front of a path leading to that very same radiostation, AM1200. He finds the place deserted except for a man in a catatonic state and realizes that this is the person that called for help. But why?
There's not really anything else to say. AM1200 is a superbly shot little horror story with good acting and great looking photography and locations which, for once, has a story that easily could have been extended into something fullength. But David Prior, the writer and director, wisely sticks to his short format, making every second count and delivering some solid horrors that are sure to stick on your mind for some time after you finished watching it. Good stuff and quite a showreel for the future.
Alone in the wilderness (2004)
A lot of us out there in this world are people who long for something else but never really get to the point of doing exactly what we really want, for many different reasons of course. It can be that the goal is too farfetched to reach or that we just are too scared to go there, settling for what we have. Whatever the reason is, here is a documentary that just might inspire you a bit. And if it doesnt, it is still a warm portrait of a man who left our industrialised world behind to go exactly where he wanted and do what was in his heart.
Alone in the wilderness is the story of Richard Proenneke who at the age of 52 decided to quit his job as a mechanic and retired to Twin lakes in Alaska, an area in the middle of the wilderness. He spent a year in a borrowed cabin cutting down trees and making logs, then returning the next summer building a cabin of his own. He spent the next 30 years up there alone with mother nature, only returning to civilization in 1999 at the age of 82 when he decided that the -40 celcius winter temperatures were a bit too much to withstand. During all these years he filmed a lot of his life with a 16mm colour camera and we get to follow him as he builds his cabin and lives his life in solitude. It is truly a fascinating journey to watch Proenneke manufacture all the tools he needs himself (with the exception of some metal parts), build a cabin all by himself along with all the furniture he needs and growing a small garden to sustain himself. He does get supplies from time to time from a friend with an airplane, but mostly he is all by himself. All this is narrated by a big drone of a voice that suits the proceedings well, with lots of grainy 16mm footage of the area. I think the 16mm footage is something that adds an extra edge to the whole thing, since it's far from the perfect HD images of your average National Geographic documentary. It gets more personal, which is as it should be.
You cant help but to be impressed by Richard Proenneke and the life he provides for himself, especially after you see the view from his cabin window. Twin lakes is a marvelous place and although I realize that I am not cut out for that kind of life, I still envy him - both for his strength in achieving what he wanted and for a life without bills, subwaytrains, internet and promoting synergy. Proenekke was truly the perfect individual for this kind of venture. The documentary is fairly short, just about an hour, but there are two "sequels" called Alaska - Silence and solitude and The Frozen north, both of which I have not seen. Yet. There is also a book: One Man's Wilderness: An Alaskan Odyssey, which I am going to track down and read. Proenneke was a fascinating man (He passed away in 2003 at the age of 86) and he gives us all inspiration, if its just the fact that it actually is possible to achieve what you want.
Drunken stupor
So, the last saturday I met upp with a couple of friends on the town for a nice little movieevening with lots of beer, booze and.. uh.. movies!
We started by making a huge dish of excellent lasagne, the kind that has you gasping for air and afterwards trying hard not to fall asleep as your digestive system is shutting down just about everything in your body to process the food. While doing this we watched Hardware on bluray. The movie is still as entertaining as ever, though the main talk during the movie was what Richard Stanley could've done if he had had a bit more money.
They live was on next - a minor John Carpenter movie for several reasons. Reason number one is Roddy Piper, who isnt much of an actor. Reason nr two is that it has a pretty pisspoor excuse for an ending. It is still a fun little flick but Carpenter has made a lot better movies and spent most of the time talking about Pipers haircut and all the the cool quotes that appeared in other media, like Duke Nukem 3d.
So, cherrycoke and absolut vodka? I think I'll stick to redbullvodka in the future. Yech.
Now we turned towards redneck territory with Pighunt, a mixture between the Giant animalgenre and the nasty hillbillymovie. The movie would've been better with characters that werent just assholes and there could have been a lot more violence, but the copious nudity and the nasty rednecks compensated a bit.
By now we were getting pretty drunk and the conversation turned turned, as it always does, to Heavy Metal, me being a more synthpop kinda guy. Nothing ever comes out of these discussions other than the fact that I still dont love poodle metal.
Next movie in line was two episodes of the magnificient british comedy series Garth Marengi Dark place, a superb parody of 80s horror which everyone should own. Seriously, it's fucking awesome.
After this we started to watch Versus, my favorite japanese zombiemovie, though I will admit that by this time I was pretty drunk and didnt watch much. We were just trashtalking alot with me mainly saying bad stuff about Heavy metal and the others about Kraftwerk. you know. the usual.
So, when Versus was finished i forced the others two watch Evil dead trap but then I began to feel pretty lousy so I decided to head home. It was, after all, three in the morning. When I left the other two decided too watch Martyrs, which is another excellent french flick but should frankly be watched while sober to maximize its effect.
Well, that was just about it. The day after was spent wathing Kung fu panda, Mythbusters and playing Left for dead 2.
Nine miles down (2009)
An interesting tidbit: This movie was supposed to be directed by John Carpenter back in 1996 but he left the production to make Escape from LA instead, which makes for some pretty interesting thoughts about how the movie would've turned out.
So, is Adrian Paul a good actor? I'm not a big fan of the Highlander tv-series and the last thing I saw him in was the horrible cheesefest Lost colony aka Wraiths of Roanoke, in which I accused him of just doing an "ok" english accent. Hehe. The man was born and raised british. Shame on me. Sorry Adrian. In this flick Mr Paul plays some sort of roaming security guard in the African desert who is dispatched to a drilling site where a group of scientists are performing experiments. They havent been heard from in days and our hero is to find out why. When he arrives at the location he finds it strangely deserted and in one of the rooms remains of some sort of animal sacrifice can be found. Then there's the blood on the walls, writing that says "Save yourselves". The next day he meets what seems to be the only survivor of the scientists, a young woman who shows him the bodies of some of the scientists who supposedly killed themselves. She also plays him the weird sounds that emanates from a huge cavern "nine miles down" which disturbingly sounds like human voices in pain. Our hero starts to see and hear strange things, and becomes very suspicious when he learns that the scientist team is supposed to be all male... but is all this in his mind, or have the scientists managed to open up a gate to some sort of hellish underworld and released evil into the world. You have to watch the film to find out.
Not bad, not bad. Nine miles down starts incredibly well with a great location and a good mystery which unfolds at a perfect pace. The first 40-45 minutes are excellent with just the right amounts of plotrevelations. Adrian Paul does a good job playing the securityofficer "with baggage" and Kate Nauta is ok in the role of the female survivor JC. She does appear a bit young for a doctor with phds but she is pretty sexy and play off well with Adrian Paul, which is lucky for us since the movie is basically about these two characters. Is he crazy or is she a spawn of Satan? The whole thing works well as suspense with a fair number of creepy scenes but unfortunately starts to fall apart somewhat halfway through. The more we learn, the less interesting it gets basically. It all lead to a perfectly decent ending, which on the other hand isnt especially hard to figure out in advance. I think my main dissapointment with this movie is the fact that it took of in a direction that I didnt want it to go, and if you consider that, Nine miles down is a fine little thriller which plays its Is it/Isnt it card well. Good viewing but one can only wonder what John Carpenter could've done with this. And yes, Adrian Paul is a good actor.
Dont wake the dead (2008)
Ok, so someone has given Andreas Schnaas enough money to make a movie again... what is the world coming to? I will forgive him for the Violent shit trilogy and Zombie 90, these are tongue in cheek flicks which shouldnt be taken seriously whatsoever and they have given me lots of entertainment back in the days when the world focused on vhsdupes of uncut movies. His Anthropophagous 2000 was better than I expected but then came the awful Demonium and one of the worst movies I have ever seen - Nikos the impaler. These are awful pieces of digital bits that are supposed to resemble movies and I swore to never watch a Schnaasmovie ever again. Until now.
So why did I let myself do such a horrible thing? The answer is - The trailer. From looking at it (once) Dont wake the dead appears to be nice little homage to Amando De Ossorios Blind dead movies and (yet again, from looking at the trailer) actually looks like a movie. The little kid in me rejoiced - zombies and gore. How can you fail? Well, actually you can. The movie starts ok with a flashback full of gore where a group of templars are killed by villagers in a small town. Flash forward to present day where some nice looking ladies are going to an old mansion (yes, where the templar buria l ground is located) to help a friend renovate. A german punk/metalband are gonna provide some entertainment and all looks well until a weird guy appears, performing some sort of ritual and presto, the dead awake (along with some nazis that tried to kill them during the war - now servants to the undead templars). So, the rest of the movie follow the usual patterns. Tits - gore - tits - gore. Should be a winner, right?
The first problem is that Andreas Schnaas still isnt a good director who doesnt know how to stage a coherent narrative. The result is a string of gorescenes loosely connected by an excuse for a plot, nothing we havent seen ten times before. It doesnt really help much that acting is pretty mediocre, though I suspect that that owes more to the fact that the actresses arent speaking in their native language. But the worst crime of the movie occurs about an hour in, when the punkband returns from the dead to have a concert in the mansion with all the templar zombies headbanging to the music. WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU SCHNAAS?!?! If you want to shoot a musicvideo for some of your friends, do that and include it in the extras if you really have to BUT DONT PUT IT IN THE FUCKING MOVIE! It stops the movie dead in its tracks, is intercut with the footage of the zombies stalking their victims and fits in the whole thing like, I dont know, a decent narrative in an Andreas Schnaas movie?!
You know, i wanted to like the movie more than I finally did. The movie is pretty quick with introducing the zombies (and you get several gorefilled flashbacks before that even happens) and you dont have to wait very long between the numerous (and decently designed) gorescenes. The actresses do a decent enough job even though they are struggling with the language and most of them have nudescenes which is a plus. I've seen worse, lots worse movies. But then came the concertscene. It's just... retarded. One second you're seeing the survivors being hunted down in the cellar by one of the former, now zombiefied friends and next you're wathing her dance in front of the stage in that FUCKING concert. Are you guys trying to be fucking Lordi?!?! Aaaaargh. This scene totally killed the movie for me, and I'd rather watch Violent shit 1 on a blurry vhs before ever watching this again.
If Schnaas ever decides to edit out that scene in a directors cut and perhaps tighten up the flow a bit, then this could be a decent enough little goremovie. But as it is today, I can only recommend this movie to fans of metalbands in monstermasks.
And who designed that poster? Stevie Wonder?
According to Fangoria, there will be another sequel to the fabulous XTRO-series!!!
"I am going to be starting XTRO 4 this summer; you are the first to receive this shattering news," Davenport tells us. "A script by Daryl Haney is in the works, and my sales guys are salivating. It's going to be a very odd movie indeed. Sort of back to the roots of the first one, but much stranger and, hopefully, more uncomfortable."
A.W.E.S.O.M.E!!!
[Rec] 2 (2009)
Ok, Jaume Balagueró is by far the most promising movie director I have encountered in the last ten years. So far he hasnt made a movie even close to sub-par. Both The Nameless and Darkness are superior movies, and even the somewhat flawed Fragile had a number of awesome scenes in it. When REC came, it cemented his stature as a great horror filmmaker. Now comes REC 2 and the expectations are high. Is Balagueró capable of a good sequel?
Yes. REC 2 is as good, if not slightly better. The power of Balaguerós (and Paco Plaza of course) filmmaking is even more so when you realize that the movie is set in the exact same building as the first movie and and the fact they still manages to keep up the momentum is an awesome task.
So, if you havent seen the first movie you should. A cameracrew is following a group of firemen as they enter a building but it is soon quarantined when an infection, very similar to the one in 28 days later, starts to spread. It is a great piece of energetic horror with a lot of adrenaline all shown through the cameramans camera and part two is exactly the same. Fifteen minutes after the events of part 1 a SWAT-team is sent in along with a doctor to look for survivors. Of course, there is something more than that and we get an explanation to the cause of the infection. An awesome explanation. I gather some people will find it silly but me - that's the kind of plottwist I like. What really impresses me is that the movie basically reuses the same storystructure as the original, but somehow manages to come out fresh and engaging. If you liked the first part, you will like this as well. And if you hated the last 15 minutes of the first REC, you will hate the last 15 minutes in this one.
I liked this a lot, I just might even like this one a bit more that the original which proves once again that Spain is the horrormoviecountry of this millenium. So far at least. The movie is violent, scary and is an awesome example of how to make a sequel. Very well recommended.
I liked Jake Wests Evil aliens, a fun little movie full of gore and aliens and while it was a bit juvenile at times and too derivative of Peter Jacksons earliest goremovie, it was still always entertaing and full of gore which cant be a bad thing if treated with love. Here comes Doghouse, Wests latest project where he obviously has gotten a decent budget which means he can afford better actors and good production values. Too bad he wastes it all on a script like this.
So, a group of guy friends are taking a holiday in a small town to help one of their friends get over his recent divorce. Unknownst to them, the town they have chosen is exactly the right to place to do just that, since it's the site of some sort of event that has turned all the women into murderous zombies. Yes, this means there will be a lot of trash talk about females and relationships with them. Actually, there will be a lot of unfunny trash talk. The humour in this movie never really works, in spite of the fact that it is delivered by a group of very talented actors. The idea that women would turn into zombies could be made into a rather intriguing movie, but this sure as hell isnt it. Which sucks because Jake West handles the moviemaking bits with considerable skill. The horrorsequences are handled really well and the movie itself moves at a good pace with a fair amount of well executed bloody grue. In fact, this proves to me that if West finds good material, his next movie will be something to look forward to. As for Doghouse, if you can stand the stupid humour it makes for decent viewing. It's well done and gory, which I suppose makes up for some of its faults. Until next time, West.
Some good movies
Again, these movies do not belong in this blog but they are both so good that they deserve a mention.
Wall-E.
Cute, lovable and amazingly designed. Awesome stuff.
Coraline.
Stopmotion is rare these days, but Coraline is an awesome example that it still is a viable way of making movies. The movie scary fun of both adults and kids.
Days of darkness (2007)
So, a piece of a comet runs a trail through the skies above Northamerica. The next day most of the living people are walking corpses and the few survivors in LA are hiding in an abandoned military facility while constantly bickering within the group. Until they realize that there is more to these zombies than what appears at a first glance... you know, a scifi twist.
I wish I could say that this was a good movie, there are several things about it that i like but it's all drowned in a swamp of clichés. The story is interesting but draws too much inspiration from the movies the filmmakers obviously cherish, and suffers from some not so good storytelling. The story itself is fine, but the actions of some of the characters is somewhat erratic. The characters are ok, decently acted but never really feels like anything other than characters in a moviescript. The script tries hard but the endless monologues of exposition never feels authentic. Kudos for trying though, which is more than I can say for a whole bunch of movies with a similar budget. Another not so good bit are the special effects which are ok, as long as its plain facemakeup or gore. There is a sequence where a character is attacked by a creature, though well designed, just about as mobile as a McFarlane actionfigure. The whole thing just looks stupid. The background story is pretty fun but comes with a twist that is... well, corny to say the least.
Not all things are bad though. The movie has a decent flow, good amounts of fun gore, a little bit gratitous nudity and is never really boring. I found myself entertained throughout the entire movie so if you want your lowbudgetzombiemovies tinged with a bit of "50s"ish scifi, this just might be your thing. I've seen a lot of worse similar movies and all in all, it is a good try. Just keep your expectations low and you will come out of it unharmed.
Thankskilling (2009)
Even though I am Swedish and therefore have no cultural connection to the American tradition of Thanksgiving, there is no way in hell I can ignore a movie with this tagline:
Gobble, gobble motherfucker!
Yes. this is a movie about a punthrowing, demonically possessed, evil turkey. Sometimes you dont need more than that. This is lowbudget filmmaking at its lowest. When the movie starts we are treated to the sight of a pair of giant breasts who belongs to an actress named Wanda Lust who we last saw in movies such as Cock smoking grannies, MILF does a Brotha good! and three parts of the esteemed Older women, younger men series.(The dvdinlay actually promises nudity within the first second. This, however, is a blatant lie. It doesnt actually occur until at least three or four seconds within the movie). We are told that it is 500 years ago and that the halfnude woman is a pilgrim being hunted by a demonically possessed turkey. Now flash forward to present day and we learn that it is Thanksgiving break and a group of characters are all heading home for the holidays. The Jock, the prudish girl, the slut, the fat guy and the nerd. While on the road their car breaks down and they decide to camp for the night, at the exact same time as a Hobos dog pisses on the evil turkey burial ground. Yes, the turkey rises from the dead and starts to hunt down all the characters and their families in all manners of odd ways.
Yes, this is a killer turkey movie. If you knew that already, your expectations are automatically lowered. The jokes are incredibly low but then again, in this kind of movie you dont want them any other way. The actors arent particulary good, but they are in on the joke and you realize that they are having a hard time not cracking up from all that silly dialogue. The story is as coherent as you'd expect but it does resemble a movie with fairly competent photography but you dont really watch this than a long series of goofy gags. There is a lot of cheap, cheesy gore and the turkey itself? Cheap and cheesy, just as expected. For some reason though, the slut is a fairly prude slut and the only nudity is in the beginning of the movie, the cocksmoking grannie.
Ok, to demonstrate why you should ever watch this movie I will have to describe my favorite scene in the movie:
The turkey pays a visit to the prude girls dad, kills him and cuts off his face to wear it as a mask. Of course, the whole group think it's her dad. The sight of a satanic turkey wearing a human facemask, complete with mustasch, is frankly hilarious and the scenes until he is demasked are great fun.
What else can I say? No, this is not a good movie but doesnt, like any Troma movie, throw in everything and the kitchen sink and I had a quaint good time being fully aware of what I was watching. And let us all support this movie because the end credits promise that the Turkey will be back... in SPACE! Let us hope that they throw in some nazizombies and the movie will be perfect.
Jocke Andersson
The worship of all that is Kaiju. And Emma Cohen. And Helga Line. And Paul Blaisdell. And strong, bearded weightlifters.
Sidvyer
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Are you a man who's questioning his career? Read on to learn why men are needed in occupational therapy and why they are so important.
Professionals, researchers, the AOTA, and other qualified surveyors have been studying the problem for years: why are there so few male occupational therapists? There has been speculation through the years, and studies have revealed answers that range from the surprising to the obvious.
When asked, many men say they view occupational therapy as a female profession. This is a big problem. Yes, OT is a profession dominated by females, but most women in the profession will tell you men are just as important to it. In times like this, where men are scarce, men can sometimes be more important not only for the profession itself, but for certain clients. For example, if a 200-pound man fell and broke both his legs, he would probably feel better about relying on a male occupational therapist, who he knows could more easily pick him up and carry him, than a female who might not be able to handle the weight.
Male occupational therapists are needed in all the same places as their female counterparts. Hospitals, rehabilitation centers, career centers, nursing homes, schools, private practice, and mental health facilities are all in an immediate need of male OTs.
So what are some of the things holding men back? Josh had a great point. The lack of men and men and women from varied cultural backgrounds could be a starting point. More men from different ethnic groups on selection panels in schools could also help recruit more men into occupational therapy.
In the past, men who left the profession said they didn't feel OT gave them room for advancement, and salaries were low. Some men felt that occupational therapy was regarded as a lower-status health related career than a being a doctor. This is simply unacceptable.
Salaries: salaries are increasing everyday. In fact, depending on where you live and where you work, you could be making over six figures a year. While the highest paid occupational therapists were making around fifty thousand annually 30 years ago, that figure now stands as the lowest salary an occupational therapist could make.
Job Opportunities: occupational therapists are seeing a rise in the amount of positions open to them. Plus, there is a wide range of places an OT may find work including hospitals, schools, rehabilitation centers, private practice offices, and more. Job security has also derived from the increase in job opportunities over the past several years.
Education: OT programs are more hands-on these days. Not only do students get to learn in a classroom, but fieldwork is also a mandatory part of ones OT education. In the past, men surveyed were asked how they liked OT school and most said they disliked it because it was mainly classroom work and not enough hands-on experience. Well friends, the people listened and curriculum is now geared towards more hands-on education.
Leadership: as with any growing field, more job opportunities means more leadership roles are available too. What's ironic about this is while men make up only about 5 percent of occupational therapists, they hold more leadership roles than women.
Diversity: as mentioned before, occupational therapists work with a diverse clientele. Depending on where you work and live, you may have one client who is five years old and suffers from autism and another who's 60 and has multiple sclerosis.
The list of reasons goes on and on, but the bottom line is that occupational therapy is a growing field and men are just as important as women. Some clients need a male role model in their life, something a woman cannot provide. If you are a man looking for a career that is unique, challenging, and secure, that pays well, and allows you to work with a variety of people in different phases of their lives, then occupational therapy is the career for you!
Get started today by checking out occupational therapy schools for OTs and OTAs near you. You can complete your education in as little as four years, and be well on your way to creating a new life for yourself and your clients.
Need more advice? To answer your questions, check out some of the other articles in this section by clicking here.


text:
Can You Use Expired Medicine?
I don't know about your medicine cabinet, but mine is a jumble of mostly expired drugs: the muscle relaxants I got when I threw out my back a few years ago; the anti-nausea medicine I never took during my stomach woes last summer; the Xanax to occasionally help me cope with the dizzying state of the world.
I've often wondered what I should do with these expired medicines — whether and how I should get rid of them, if they're unsafe to use or whether some might still work perfectly well. For this week's newsletter, I dug into the research and reached out to three eminent pharmacists, one of whom has studied expired medicines, to gain some insight.
Here's what expiration dates and other 'use-by' labels really mean.
With guidance from the US Food and Drug Administration, manufacturers set drug expiration dates based on tests they have conducted to determine how long the medication will remain safe and effective.
An expiration date "represents a promise that the medication is good at least that long, if properly stored," explained Dan Sheridan, a medication safety pharmacist at OhioHealth Marion General Hospital. Many expiration dates are set between one and five years after the drug is made.
For many prescription drugs, however, what you see on your bottle is not an expiration date but a "beyond use" date. (On my prescriptions, this date appears after the words "Discard by.") The beyond use date is typically sooner than the medication's original expiration date, explained James Stevenson, a pharmacist at the University of Michigan College of Pharmacy and the chief clinical officer at the health care technology company Omnicell. That's because a pharmacist often has to handle, mix with other ingredients and move a medicine into a new container in order to give it to you, and doing so reduces the amount of time it will be usable, he said.
For some drugs, the beyond use date is just a few days or weeks after the medicine is dispensed. "A powdered antibiotic suspension may be good on the pharmacy shelf for two years, but for only 14 days once the pharmacy adds water and dispenses it to the patient," Mr. Sheridan explained.
Some drugs may work past their expiration date.
Although expiration and beyond use dates provide useful information — you can feel confident your medicine will work for at least that long if it's been properly stored (more on that in a minute) — drugs don't necessarily become dangerous or less potent once that date has passed, said Lee Cantrell, a clinical pharmacist with the School of Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco.
In a small 2012 study, Dr. Cantrell and three colleagues tested eight drugs, containing 14 widely differing active ingredients, that had been sitting unopened in a pharmacy closet with expiration dates that had passed between 28 and 40 years earlier. They found that 86 percent of the drugs' ingredients were still present in the concentrations they were supposed to be. The findings suggest that some medications, like acetaminophen and the opioid painkiller hydrocodone, retain their potency "for a long, long time," he said.
Dr. Cantrell pointed out, though, that he and his colleagues did not actually test the drugs in people. "I can't say that it's OK to take expired medication," he said. The FDA also recommends against taking expired drugs. However, he has been working at the California Poison Control Center in San Diego for nearly 30 years, and said that people call the center regularly after realizing they have taken expired medicines, worried about what will happen. To his knowledge, nothing bad ever has, he said.
Dr. Cantrell's study is one of just a few published studies that have evaluated the chemistry of expired medicines. In a study published in 2006, researchers with the FDA and the pharmaceutical company Sandoz tested 122 different drug products and found that 88 percent were still safe to use an average of 5.5 years past their expiration date.
In fact, the FDA sometimes tests expired drugs needed for public health emergencies and extends their expiration dates if they are found to work and be safe. You can check whether the expiration dates of any of the drugs you own have been extended by searching here.
Some drugs should, however, be discarded.
When considering whether to take an expired drug, use your common sense. It's safer to take an expired drug to treat a health nuisance — like ibuprofen to aid a headache or allergy medicine to treat mild hay fever — than it is to take one to treat a serious medical condition, Dr. Cantrell said.
One class of drugs you shouldn't use past their expiration date are antibiotics, Dr. Stevenson said. If you take an antibiotic that is not as strong as it should be, "that could actually be harmful," he said, because the drug might not effectively fight your infection. Research from the 1960s also linked expired tetracycline to kidney problems, perhaps because the antibiotic produces dangerous chemicals when it breaks down, but it's unclear if current formulations pose this risk.
July 7, 2022, 4:20 pm ET
Mr. Sheridan also cautioned against using expired eye drops — they can become contaminated with microorganisms; and expired nitroglycerin, as the explosive that is also used to treat chest pain in people with heart disease loses its potency over time. The American Diabetes Association does not recommend using insulin past its expiration date, either.
Most drugs can be discarded in the trash, but the FDA recommends that you mix them with coffee grounds, dirt or cat litter so that they are less appealing to children or pets who might consider eating them, and that they should be sealed in a bag or container. Some drugs that have abuse potential, including those containing opioids, should not be thrown away.
According to the FDA, these drugs can either be flushed down the toilet or dropped into secure medication disposal boxes found at pharmacies. Also, the Drug Enforcement Administration partners with local governments to collect drugs on designated "National Prescription Drug Take Back Day" events.
Store medications properly to maximize shelf life.
To ensure that your medications will work until — and perhaps past — their expiration or beyond use dates, store them properly. "Ironically, a medicine cabinet in a bathroom is not a good place to store medications," Mr. Sheridan said. "The high temperatures and humidity may cause the medication to break down more quickly." He suggests storing medicines in cool, dry locations that are out of the reach of direct sunlight (and children). But of course, if there are different storage directions on the bottle, be sure to follow them. Some drugs, for instance, need to be refrigerated.
Clearly, I have some changes to make at home: I keep my medicines in the bathroom, and I am pretty sure I have expired antibiotics hiding in my stash somewhere. But I may not throw all my expired medicines out—or at least, not just yet. I'll keep my slightly expired ibuprofen around in case of emergencies. And maybe my Xanax.
How Body Size Affects Plan B
Some research suggests that the emergency contraceptive pill, known as Plan B, does not work as well among people with a high body mass index, or BMI But doctors still understand very little about why this is, and about who is most at risk for contraceptive failure. That's in part because the early research on contraception did not consider the effects of body size.
Does Plan B Have a Weight Limit?
The Questions That Could Salvage Your Relationship
Many relationships are on the rocks these days because of the pandemic and other strains. But couples counselors and sex therapists say that asking certain questions can help couples rekindle their spark. These queries can prompt couples to have more fun together, split domestic burdens more equally, and share pressing concerns, among other things.
Are We Still Monogamous? And 6 Other Questions to Ask Your Partner.
The Week in Well
Here are some stories you don't want to miss:
Let's keep the conversation going. Write to me at well_newsletter@nytimes.com.
NASA's CAPSTONE moon probe bounces back from glitch, aces engine burn
New dating method upends the story of human evolution

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Applying ripple to custom pop up menu I have created a custom pop up menu. It is rounded. But the ripple is still square
<style name="RoundPopUpMenu" parent="@style/Widget.AppCompat.Light.PopupMenu">
        <item name="android:popupBackground">@drawable/popupmenu_bg</item>

    </style>

popupmenu_bg.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item
        android:top="6dp"
        android:bottom="6dp">
        <shape
            android:shape="rectangle">
            <stroke
                android:color="@color/rounded_card_bg"
                android:width="1px" />
            <padding
                android:top="6dp"
                android:bottom="6dp" />
            <corners
                android:radius="24dp" />
            <solid
                android:color="@color/rounded_card_bg" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</layer-list>

How can i customise the ripple. I already tried changing dropdownselector to a custom drawable it does n't work
the custom drop down selector drawable code :
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<layer-list xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android">
    <item
        android:top="6dp"
        android:bottom="6dp">
        <shape
            android:shape="rectangle">
            <stroke
                android:color="?attr/listChoiceBackgroundIndicator"
                android:width="1px" />
            <padding
                android:top="6dp"
                android:bottom="6dp" />
            <corners
                android:radius="24dp" />
            <solid
                android:color="?attr/listChoiceBackgroundIndicator" />
        </shape>
    </item>
</layer-list>

A: Style:
<style name="PopupMenuItemStyle" parent="Widget.AppCompat.PopupMenu">
        <item name="android:textColor">@color/WHITE</item>
        <item name="android:background">@drawable/ripple_no_corners</item>
 </style>

ripple_no_corners:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ripple xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:color="@color/SELECTED">

    <item>
        <shape android:shape="rectangle">
            <solid
                android:color="@color/MAIN"></solid>

        </shape>
    </item>

</ripple>

Java class:
 Context wrapper = new ContextThemeWrapper(getContext(), R.style.PopupMenuItemStyle);
              PopupMenu popupMenu = new PopupMenu(wrapper, v);

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Emirates Global Aluminium said operations have started at its $3.3 billion Al Taweelah alumina refinery in Abu Dhabi.
EGA expects the refinery to produce about two million tonnes of alumina per year once the facility is fully operational, replacing some imports and securing EGA's supply of the raw material, the company said. Bauxite is the raw material refined into alumina, which is then used to manufacture aluminium, and the UAE currently imports all of its alumina requirements.
"Al Taweelah alumina refinery, and our bauxite mining project in Guinea where construction continues, secure our supply of raw materials at competitive prices and will strengthen EGA's business for decades ahead," Abdulla Kalban, EGA's managing director and chief executive, said.
EGA, the UAE's biggest industrial company outside the oil and gas sector, built the alumina refinery and invested $1.4bn in a bauxite mining project in Guinea in line with a strategy to control all parts of the value chain, reduce costs and secure raw materials for its aluminium production. The first bauxite exports from the mine are expected to start during the second half of this year.
Al Taweelah alumina refinery is located in Khalifa Industrial Zone in Abu Dhabi, spanning 200 football fields, is the first alumina refinery in the UAE.
The refinery is expected to convert about five million tonnes of bauxite into alumina per year once it is fully operational. Bauxite for the project will be imported from Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinée in the West African nation.
EGA expects the start of its alumina refinery and the bauxite mine in Guinea to help reduce raw material costs, which led to lower profitability in 2018.
Profit slid 64 per cent to Dh1.2 billion in 2018 due to higher raw material costs despite record production and a 14 per cent uptick in revenue to Dh23.5bn, which was mostly driven by higher sales volumes and prices, EGA said in March.
"This year once they are online, both the refinery and mine, you will start to see some of the cost savings and implications coming into our bottom line," Danny Dweik, the chief financial officer told The National in March. "But you will see the full potential of them in 2020 once both these projects are ramping up production."


A new service offers home delivery of fresh foods — direct from the farm.
December 19, 2013, 1:37 p.m.
One of the biggest stumbling blocks to the growth of the local food revolution is that it's not equally accessible to everyone (unless you grow your own food, which is arguably a bit more equal opportunity). Buying fresh, healthy produce is actually quite a challenge, even for those who can afford the often-but-not-always higher prices of local food. Farmers markets are usually held during the day when most people are at work, and inconvenient CSA pickups with their typical crapshoot variety and quantity of produce scares off many people.
If two people are working full-time in a household, it can be a real challenge to get food outside of an (often overpriced) health-oriented supermarket, and while some of the products in such a market will be local, many of them might be "healthy," but from halfway around the world (and we know that shipping stuff uses plenty of nonrenewable fossil fuels, which only exacerbates global warming and disenfranchises local growers). It's a real conundrum for people who care about food.
Good Eggs is out to change that frustrating narrative. About two years ago, Rob Spiro, co-founder and CEO of the company, got together with some friends to make healthy local food more easily available. "We started as a mission-driven company, and that mission was to grow sustainable food systems worldwide. We want to help local food systems to grow," he said.
How? Good Eggs is doing it through a food-delivery system (and some very fancy backend software, we'd have to guess). If you've ever used a grocery-delivery platform, like FreshDirect or PeaPod, you know how it works; you scroll through a site, choose what you like, and it gets delivered at a future time. But at Good Eggs, everything you order is secured through local food purveyors. We're talking farmers, of course, but also bakers, ranchers, pickle- and jam-makers, apiarists, and even flower-growers.
It has to be super-pricy, right? Not really. In fact, the company made sure that it was offering items at prices as affordable as possible. The only difference between Good Eggs and others is that you will have to wait a bit longer for your local food, since it's not already sitting in a warehouse, but coming directly from the people who make it or grow it. That has an upside.
Spiro says, "The produce is higher quality than you'll find in any supermarket; that's what's really great. But prices are really competitive too, since we are buying direct from producers. It definitely costs less than what you pay at Whole Foods."
The company launched in San Francisco, where it was pretty much an immediate success, depending on word of mouth for publicity. Next the company moved to New York City (operating out of Brooklyn), and the team currently has pilot programs in Los Angeles and New Orleans, both of which are going well. Why these cities? Well, Good Eggs' goal is to expand to hundreds of U.S. cities, and the founders chose their first few to be as diverse as possible, so they could work out as many logistical kinks as possible right at the beginning. This is not like franchising a chain restaurant — built into the DNA of the company is the fact that each locale has its own foodshed, unique products, tastes and preferences.
"There's so much that's different from city to city," says Spiro. "There's a totally unique supply chain [for each area], so you find that there's lots of nuances to pickup and delivery, as well as product selection. We have a big team on the ground in each city, and it's important to adapt the model to their city on a daily and weekly basis."
So they chose a dense city (NYC), a car-dependent city with terrible traffic (LA), a city with mixed incomes (New Orleans) so that this local food experiment isn't just about, "working in coastal, high-income markets," says Spiro. And naturally they started in cities that had a strong existing food culture, since the idea would be more easily understood. New Orleans, in particular, has been incredibly supportive, said Spiro.
The company has ensured plenty of local knowledge by hiring employees and team leaders who are from the areas they serve, instead of the typical practice of bringing in their own people from outside. Again, knowing the local landscape is a top priority.
Good Eggs chooses partners — the bakers, farmers, fisherpeople, etc. — based on specific, published criteria (including ratings and research from organizations like the Monterey Bay Aquarium), and while many of the company's products would be considered organic by most people in the healthy food community, they aren't necessarily certified by a third party.
With the passionate founding team behind the company (all of whom care deeply about food and have either worked on farms or have cooking backgrounds), the company's early success isn't surprising — these are people doing what they love and improving the world in the way they know how. Spiro sums up the company's ideals when he explains, "There are so many benefits to sustainable agriculture, and there's so much support around it. It's more than food, it's also about building local communities, and empowering consumer culture."


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text:
← HORSE RACING AND THE SINISTER ATTEMPTS AT COPYRIGHT SHAKEDOWNS
HONG KONG WONTONS, DING DONGS, THEN SOMES AND DIM SUMS →
THE NIGHT AND DAY ISSUE
THE VERY DIFFERENT NIGHT RACING EXPERIENCE.
The prospect of night racing at Randwick has been raised again. This time by you know who. And similar to anything and everything that comes out of Druitt Street, there was the inevitable fine print. Yes, it would only be considered if the Baird Government came through with a lower tax rate to bring NSW racing on a par with the lower take out rate that the arch enemy in Victoria enjoys.
Fair enough, we understand the political games that are being played and the high stakes in this game of racing poker. But, political games don't always deliver the preferred outcome, and in this instance, and not just in NSW, night racing is being hailed as the panacea to just about every imaginable problem that Australian thoroughbred racing faces.
There seems little doubt that the wagering environment has changed forever, and despite the nostalgic and delusional yearnings of a still significant section of the racing community, there can and will be no turning back. To do so would be catastrophic.
Quite clearly wagering patterns have changed along with the transformation that social change has delivered. The shift in wagering peaks to mid-afternoon and into the early night time has consolidated and will remain so into the foreseeable long term future. It is the principal reason why the two powerhouse states of NSW and Victoria are scrambling to adjust their race times to start a race meeting closer to 1.30pm with the last race run after 5.30pm.
It also explains the announcement earlier this week that Racing Victoria will be running a second weekly night racing meeting during their night racing season which begins in late September and goes through till May the following year.
Racing NSW, which has paid lip service to night racing while it has been staged at Canterbury, has suddenly embraced the time slot with Randwick the preferred venue.
Putting aside the parochialism and pointless rivalry and undermining of each other, it would be a good outcome for wagering revenue and for both States, if they could, God forbid, work cooperatively and harmoniously to stage night racing in both States on the same two nights each week and grow the wagering pool exponentially.
That aside, what night racing in Australia lacks, and it stands out like a proverbial shag on a rock, is a marketing edge, and point of difference, which has taken Happy Valley night racing to another level and keeps introducing night racing and racing in general to a whole new demographic.
It's difficult to escape the buzz of a Happy Wednesday- the infectious atmosphere, the slick race programming, and, the whole Happy Valley night racing experience. Happy Wednesday at Happy Valley is the best promotion that racing could hope for in today's dynamic environment.
Can it be replicated in Australia – at either Moonee Valley or Randwick? Very, very unlikely.
The Happy Valley advantage is that it is also very geographic. It's in the heart of the island and in the epicentre of the island's commercial and social and entertainment hub. It's so very easy to get in and out of. When the light rail comes to Randwick it will make access easier. Moonee Valley will however, forever be Dame Edna territory.
For these reasons, night racing in Australia will continue to be all about wagering revenue in a sport and market that continues to decline.
Racing won't get the shot in the arm that it so desperately needs while it's risk averse, ultra conservative and bureaucratic administrators remain in charge of the decision making process. And that's not going to change for sometime yet.
WELL DONE, ARCHIE!
Archie Alexander is a name that will be around Australian racing for a very long time. The expat 28 year old Brit has announced his arrival in Australian racing with Usain Bolt like speed, posting a Group 2 winner, and over two miles at that, from barely a dozen starters since being granted his trainers licence at the start of the new racing season.
Archie has a very good British racing pedigree and does not want for Australian racing experience having worked with some well known and successful names in racing Down Under. But not all full brothers or sisters to champion racehorses replicate the deeds of their better known siblings, or their sires or dams. Nor do Assistant trainers or senior stable staff enjoy the success of their mentors or successful employers.
Archie Alexander, who is based at Ballarat – one of Victoria's most successful country training centres and also one of the coldest in that State- trains alongside Victoria's leading trainer of last season – Darren Weir. He is being supported by one of Australia's leading high end ownership syndicates headed by Terry Henderson and former test cricketer and racing tragic Simon O'Donnell, and from what we have also been told, has one of Australia's most successful international trainers in John Fellows, previously based in Chantilly and with over 30 odd Group One international winners on his resume, in his corner.
Archie's undoubted training prowess was on display in Melbourne over the spring carnival- the most competitive time of the year, when the best names – horses, trainers and jockeys compete. It's the toughest time of the year and for Archie to train Renew to a narrow second on Cup day, beaten a nose by the Waller trained Grand Marshal at just his second start in Archie's stable and then take out the Group Two Sandown Cup last Saturday over the Melbourne Cup distance of 3200 metres, is some achievement.
Archie also received the great news that Renew will be staying in his stable and not moving to the Chris Waller yard as was originally planned.
We met Archie when he visited Hong Kong earlier this year and his demeanour and focus were two very important traits which are going to take him a long way in this cut throat industry that is racing. His stable numbers will certainly increase and so will the spotlight. All he now needs to do is learn how to tie a decent knot for his ties.
EXPAT HONG KONG HORSES CONTINUE THEIR WINNING WAY IN NZ.
Hong Kong Derby winner Fay Fay's withering finish to win the feature race at New Zealand's main Saturday race meeting last weekend continued the success story for Hong Kong Classic winners repatriated to New Zealand and adding black type races to their resume.
The 2011 Derby winner, now a seven year old, and a cast-off from the John Size yard, had not stepped out on a racetrack for 18 months, but still has a strong Hong Kong connection. He is trained by brothers Trevor and Martin Cruz, below, sons of one of the best known racing families in Hong Kong – Derek Cruz, and nephews of Derek's brother Tony, unquestionably Hong Kong's greatest and most successful home grown racing person.
The training performance by the Cruz brothers was exceptional. Like many horses who have been on the racing circuit for a long time, Fay Fay had developed joint problems and as recently as two and a half months ago, the Cruz brothers considered retiring him, but decided instead to change his training regime, which obviously paid dividends and saw Fay Fay return to the track in triumphant fashion, first up after 18 months.
He settled back inn the field and unleashed a powerful run in the home straight to record a soft half length win. Next stop is the feature Zabeel Classic and a possible Group One success in a second country.
Welcome back, Fay Fay.
This entry was posted in Australian horse racing industry, HAPPY WEDNESDAY, Hong Kong Jockey Club, Hong Kong Racing, Horse Racing, JOHN SIZE, MOONEE VALLEY, The horse racing industry and tagged Archie Alexander, Fay Fay, happy valley, happy wednesday, hong kong horse racing, John Size, Moonee Valley, NSW, RACING VICTORIA, Randwick, Sandown Cup, Trevor and Martin Cruz, Victoria racing. Bookmark the permalink.
2 Responses to THE NIGHT AND DAY ISSUE
terry steer says:
You have hit the nail on the head with regard to night racing in Sydney. I like going to Canterbury but it is quite a trek, though we usually take the kids and they run around on the lawns. it's a nice family night.
I don't think moving to Randwick is the solution. It's still a trek to get to for anyone that doesn't live in the Eastern Suburbs – which is 85% of Sydney. I'm not sure those that work in the city and live North, South or West will make the effort to head away from home and then have an additional distance to travel home late in the evening.
That is the key to Happy Valley. It is so central and easy to get to, and when the racing is over you have great nightlife a walk or short cab ride away.
Oh, and I just saw PVL on the telly talking about night racing at Randwick and positioning it as a better venue because of the better dining options in the "5 star" grand stand. He said something like thats what people were looking for. No mention of the horses running around!
James Mathers says:
Lets not give up…not yet.
I keep saying we need to take guidance from Happy Wednesday and see if we can adopt some of their clever marketing ideas in Sydney. I agree neither Randwick or Canterbury are anything like Happy Valley however we do have a concentrated population within close proximity to both venues. We have a significant Asian population living in close proximity to both venues……perhaps that's the key.
Unfortunately RNSW recently released strategic plan is very reliant on government funding. For that reason its not a strategic plan I would adopt in my business.Does RNSW have a plan B…I doubt it. Its very easy to run an allegedly successful business which is funded by grants or shareholders money…..passive funding. In my opinion RNSW need to stick to being a regulator and let the clubs put on the show!
Notwithstanding the above, the ATC desperately needs clever and creative people in charge. If I'm elected to the board that will be one of the first things I will try to get in place.
Regardless of planned prize money increases, racing in Sydney is finished if we don't urgently inject some real fun and excitement.
James Mathers (nominee for 2014 ATC board)


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Hattie Edmonds
In her own words, it's been a "funny old path" that has led Hattie Edmonds to discover work that she both loves and that "might make a smidgeon of a difference".
The journey began in a very conventional, conservative family, before swinging heavily to the left (bartending in Europe; writing for German pop magazines; getting career advice from psychics; developing comedy material for the likes of Armando Iannucci and Steve Coogan) and eventually leading her to write about subjects that merge the spiritual and scientific.
Now the author of two novels ("The Spectacular Vision of Oskar Dunkelblick" and "Cinema Lumière"), Hattie also volunteers as a copywriter for two charities. One, Global Generation, focuses on environmental education; the other, Refettorio Felix, is a community restaurant for the homeless set up by Michelin star chef Massimo Bottura.
With the books it's the stories that motivate me, both of which have a slight Buddhist undercurrent. One is about a cinema with one seat where you are shown a film of your life and the other is about a pair of glasses which enable the viewer to see 'reality', not the personal projection that we usually see.
Charity-wise, like any a sane person today, I'm passionate about giving our planet the best possible chance: whether that's by reducing food waste (and at the same time, feeding those who really need it), or educating school children about how they can make a big difference (although many school children are already taking the lead on this one).
What's the one thing that your work has taught you that you wish everyone knew?
Writing and having the two novels published has definitely taught me that patience, passion and perseverance pay off – in the end.
What book or resource do you find most inspiring at the moment?
'Leap of Perception' by Penney Peirce probably tops my current book list. I'm fascinated by where science and spirituality overlap and this one nails it.
Plans for next six months include being a part of a new community space in the gardens behind the British Library. Stories will be central to what this space (and hopefully I) offer, whether that's helping others to write, collating the personal memories of those living in the area, or setting short story competitions for local school children.
I'm a pretty predictable breakfaster: granola, yoghurt, fruit (weekdays) and eggs, then croissants (preferably with blackberry jam) at weekends. Coffee with that lovely oat milk Barista edition!


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Processing sketches follow a specific sequence of steps: setup() first, followed by draw() over and over and over again in a loop. A thread is also a series of steps with a beginning, a middle, and an end. A Processing sketch is a single thread, often referred to as the "Animation" thread. Other threads' sequences, however, can run independently of the main animation loop. In fact, you can launch any number of threads at one time, and they will all run concurrently.
You cannot draw to the screen from a function called by thread(). Because it runs independently, the code will not be synchronized to the animation thread, causing strange or at least inconsistent results. Use thread() to load files or do other tasks that take time. When the task is finished, set a variable that indicates the task is complete, and check that from inside your draw() method.
Processing uses threads quite often, such as with library functions like captureEvent() and movieEvent(). These functions are triggered by a different thread running behind the scenes, and they alert Processing whenever they have something to report. This is useful when you need to perform a task that takes too long and would slow down the main animation's frame rate, such as grabbing data from the network. If a separate thread gets stuck or has an error, the entire program won't grind to a halt, since the error only stops that individual thread.
Writing your own thread can be a complex endeavor that involves extending the Java Thread class. However, the thread() method is a quick and dirty way to implement a simple thread in Processing. By passing in a String that matches the name of a function declared elsewhere in the sketch, Processing will execute that function in a separate thread.


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Susan Schwaegler
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Susan Schwaegler first began skating at The River's Edge (then the Quad City Sports Center) in Davenport, Iowa in 1995 at the age of 37. Since that time, she has passed the Adult Gold Moves in the Field test, the Adult Silver free skating test, the Preliminary and Adult Bronze Figures tests, the Adult 50+ Silver Dance test, and the Masters Silver Free Dance test. She has competed at the Adult Midwestern Sectional Championships and the U.S. Adult National Championships in free skating, interpretive, and solo and partnered ice dance events.
Susan teaches private lessons and Learn to Skate USA classes at The River's Edge, specializing in adults and beginning ice dance. She is a registered coach with U.S. Figure Skating and a member of the Professional Skaters Association, earning her Registered Ice Dance Instructor rating in 2014. In 2019, she became a Certified GravityGlide® Coach. She has served for many years on the board of the Figure Skating Club of the Quad Cities and was named to the USFS Adult Committee in 2018. She has a bachelor's degree in Music Education from Northwestern University and a Master of Pastoral Studies from St. Ambrose University. She is retired from Augustana College, Rock Island, IL, where she taught clarinet for 24 years.
Susan trains at the Fox Valley Ice Arena in Geneva, IL, with coaches Alina Ponomarova, Kseniya Ponomaryova, and Collin Brubaker, and partnering coach Michael Schlautman. With former partner David Bakke, she was the 2016 Adult Bronze Ice Dance champion.
Susan's current private lesson rate is $40/hour, and her music cutting rate is $15/program. sdschwaeg@gmail.com