Apologies for not making an update in almost a week, but a lot’s been going on. Well, nothing really very interesting if you write it all down, but I’ve been doing a fair bit of writing and rediscovered my love of reading (part of why this entertainment blog’s been a bit lax). Tentatively named “Love in the Time of Zombies” is taking a long time to write, or should I say, a long time to get round to writing. My head’s been all over the place and while I do incorporate a lot of what I feel into my stories (downers, etc) I do need to chillax for the creative process to flow sometimes. For some reason I’ve felt a bit calmer this week, despite still searching for elusive jobs. I think this is partly because I dug out my original novel, Jack Knife and (having left it alone for a while) I was able to look over it more objectively. I wrote a brief synopsis and I think I’m able to nail what it is actually about more efficiently than I was before, without getting hung up on details. I may even try to pitch it to agents again soon. Of course I’ll probably fall flat on my arse, but it’s worth a try, isn’t it?!

I’ve got a few good (hopefully) tv posts coming soon.

Expect a feature on The Wrestler (which I saw yesterday) shortly.

Slumdog Millionaire sees the slum-dwelling Jamal Malik (Dev Patel of Skins fame) as a contestant on the Hindi version of Who Wants to be A Millionaire?. As there have been many real-life instances in which professors and the like have cheated to get on the show in India, it’s been made considerably more difficult, with questions on advanced physics popping up early on. For this reason when Jamal starts to win, suspicions arise and the story of how he comes to know the answers unfolds. I’m gonna try and see this pretty sharpish because apart from being by one of my favourite directors it sounds like just the ticket to lift the spirits at this rather grim time of year.

Completely unrelated, here are two little clips of stand-ups talking about Australia and the Australian accent, courtesy of a Polish friend. Pretty funny stuff:

Tropic Thunder has a brilliant ensemble cast and features one of my favourite actors, Robert Downey Jr. It pays homage to films like Platoon and Apocalypse Now, and it is laugh-out-loud funny.

Tropic Thunder sees Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) filming his directorial debut a war movie and it going badly. When he enlists the help of the author of Tropic Thunder the book, Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), the grizzled nam-vetran suggests they take the sheltered actors to the jungle and rig up cameras to shoot a far grittier movie. At this point things get all too real and Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr) and Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) must fight their way through the jungle and its hostile inhabitants.

The cast are all good, but two of them really shone for me – Downey Jr and Tom Cruises’s unexpected cameo as Les Grossman. Downey plays an Australian method actor whose dedication has driven him to have a controversial skin pigmentation to turn him black. All of his jokes are delivered perfectly. Jack Black’s Jeff Portnoy, who is known as a comedy actor playing all the roles himself (Nutty Professor style) loses his drugs and spends much of the film in a cold sweat. At his most desperate when tied to a tree, he offers his services to his comrades if they release him – “I’ll cradle the balls, stroke the shaft, work the pipes, and swallow the gravy.” . Stiller’s character sees Tropic Thunder as a way to reboot his waning career after his last lukewarm performance in Scorcher 6 (shown in an amusing trailer at the beginning of the film) and doesn’t realise that fiction has suddenly become a battle for survival. Tom Cruise’s character Les Grossman is a complete maniac and constantly shouting, be it at colleagues, friends, or ransom-demanding Viet-Cong bad guys. In his more philosophical moments he dances to rap music and dishes out reassurances – “Speedman is a dying star. A white dwarf headed for a black hole. That’s physics. It’s inevitable.” It is a pleasant surprise to see Cruise in this role and he gets plenty of laughs.

Exchanges between Downry Jr and Stiller concerning his “Simple Jack” character are both funny and at times immoral, but shouldn’t be taken to heart. Equally there are jokes concerning race, but these are never overbearing.

I would rank this near to the likes of Shaun of the Dead and Borat for laughs and for that bit more substance than your average insipid comedy – you know, the kind that have those DVD covers of puke-worthy pinks and whites with people’s faces all over them, it’s the same for books and music too…

Go see it! You will laugh. Oh, and I know what dude I am. I’m the dude playin’ the dude, disguised as another dude!

Enjoy.