Archives for December 2005
From the other side of the world
What do I and two of Time Magazine’s three people of the year have in common? We’re all spending Christmas in Queenstown. In case you didn’t get a card from me, here’s a postcard of Christmas life in the Southern Hemisphere.
And a picture of a New Zealand christmas tree.
There are times when New Zealand feels a long way from home, and this is one of them, but it should be a fine time in the mountains. Whereever you are, I hope you have a great day.
Where am I now?
It’s been a month since I last told you about my travels, in which time I’ve travelled 3,700km from the bottom of New Zealand to the very top. I’m currently in Auckland for a couple of days to catch up with friends before heading south to Queenstown for Christmas.
Rather than cram everything into one short post, for now I’ll tell you that I have lost the skin off my toes, paddled in Jacques Cousteau’s footsteps, fought and lost for my sandwiches, dodged a thirty metre wand and grown increasingly worried about The Turd’s health.
I’ll sort through the pictures and tell you more about it in a the next week or so; back to free internet in Queenstown which will make things much easier. In the meantime I hope you all enjoy the run up to Christmas. It’s in the 20s at the moment and apart from the giant waving Father Christmas on the corner of the building opposite this cafe, it’s hard for me to believe it will be Christmas Day less than a week from now.
Humbug.
Kong is King
I’m writing this in a cafe just opposite Auckland’s Civic Theatre which stood in for New York in Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong, a year ago today. I know this because I’ve been dipping into the DVD of his video diaries shot regularly throughout the making of the movie, and the December 17th 2004 entry covered shooting in Auckland.
If you’re just a bit of a movie geek then you’ll find these fascinating: snappy, insightful and funny. They cover everything from building the sets to Jack Black and Jackson trying to hide from Gandalf the White taking spy pics.
The diaries were originally released during production through the Kong is King website, itself an unofficial operation separate from the studio, as discussed in a more prosaic manner in this Wired article. What’s remarkable, of course, is that Jackson has in effect released the DVD extras before the movie itself. He comes across as a pretty normal, nice guy, rather than the megalomaniac one might expect from such a successful director.
Really looking forward to seeing the film itself, which I hope to catch on the big screen in Wellington. Mark Kermode speaks highly of it and reckons that Andy Serkis as Kong is the star of the movie. And, on almost all things, he’s right on. Will report back.
Asterix and the allegorical tale
Albert Uderzo continues to turn out a new Asterix book once a decade with the latest, Asterix and the Falling Sky, reaching New Zealand shelves last week. Being a huge Asterix fan since forever, I snapped this one up at an exorbitant important price and ripped through it in an hour.
I wonder if Uderzo’s energies were roused by the French political spirit. Alien warriors have head about the magic potion and are on their way to steal it. The last undefeated village in Gaul is visited by Toon, a purple alien from a rival planet, who has been sent on a pre-emptive strike to confiscate the potion before the rivals arrive to ‘protect’ the villagers .
When the aggressors reach Gaul, Toon sends out his superclones who appear as chiselled superman lookalikes. Naturally there’s a big fight and none of the invaders get what they wanted.
Hopefully you can spot the allegorical aspects of this tale.
Not the best of the series – the translation is lacking its old edge – but still a few clever lines in there plus a little twist at the end which will leave regular Asterix readers will a chuckle. I’d rather Asterix had stuck to bashing Romans rather than les etats unis, however I imagine it will be the last edition from one of the original creators, so let this a cartoon to savour. Thank you, Uderzo.
Cartoon memories
Whilst browsing the shops in Kaikohe I spotted this headstone in a monumental mason’s window just next to a cheery Father Christmas. (There’s something odd about Saint Nic amongst the headstones, but I can’t put my finger on it.)
Who would want to leave an everlasting memorial to their dead child on a headstone covered with cartoon characters and made to look like a piece of driftwood? It seems undignified.
