Friday, November 06, 2009

Y'er mad, y'er bastard!

Have a drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have some dust and sweat, mate? There's nothing else out here.

It’s one of those ooooold theatres, all the way back from the 1930s.

Chandeliers, grand piano at the top of the dramatic staircase, plush red all over the foyer, and giant 1950 movies’ posters.

The leather cinema seats lost their foam support back in the disco era, and have that great outdated alignment of you sitting directly behind the guy in row in front of you, so that you get to have his head taking up a good portion of the screen.

And to keep with the theme, last night, we watched an old Aussie cult movie from 1971. WAKE IN FRIGHT.

Well. It’s becoming a cult movie now. Now that some smart guy found the lost negatives, fixed it all up, and has re-released it all in an excellent marketing scheme.

The movie is messed-up! And Bluddy Hell, but if it doens't sum up the Aussie stereotype!
The main character is either fuck drunk or deadly hungover throughout. Never by his own choosing.

This Outback movie has it all – searing heat, desolation, Kafka depression, ‘roo hunting, nympho seduction, deep homosexual undertones between men in short shorts, so much beer that even the audience felt ready to kotch, and some excellent lines.

If you can, watch it! But make sure you have a slab of beers when you do!

The Town's Doctor: I'm a doctor of medicine. And a tramp by temperament. I'm also an alcoholic. My disease prevented me from practicing in Sydney. But out here it's scarcely noticeable.
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Dick: [asking about the main character] What's the matter with him? He'd rather talk to a woman than drink?

Tim: Schoolteacher.

Dick: Oh.

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Main Character John Grant: What’s the matter with you people? Sponge on you, burn your house down, murder your wife – that’s all right. But not have a drink with you? Don’t have a flaming bloody drink with you? That’s a criminal offence! That’s the end of the bloody world!

MORLEY: Yer mad, yer bastard

2 comments:

po said...

Hehe who drinks more really, Saffas, Aussies or Poms? I wonder. IT seems to be ingrained in all of our cultures.

Champagne Heathen said...

Definitely, but then, it also depends which group of folk you are with, or where you are in the country.

In SA, the folk in the Western Cape definitely drink more than the Gauteng'ers. And the Outbackers apparently are permanently boozed, compared to the latte Melburnians.

And then you get the poms.... where they may as well put their beds in the pub!