Author: Chloe

Leave a comment Posted on by Chloe Play Reviews

Theatre: Trees Beneath the Lake

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Trees Beneath the Lake
Auckland Theatre Company
With Michael Hurst, Catherine Wilkin, Theresa Healey, Brooke Williams, Peter Hayden, Leighton Stichbury
Directed by Simon Bennett

Hi guys! Chloe here.

I want to tell you all about this fantastic and amazing play that’s on at the moment called Trees Beneath the Lake. I saw it last night with my sister and couldn’t wait to write a review, even though I wasn’t intending to. And now I realise that since I’m writing it on Jawkward I have to make it sound coherent and less erhmagerd… so here we go.

Trees follows an ex-Wall Street guy called William Campbell, who returns to his childhood home of central Otago to kinda hide out a little bit when he starts to get investigated by authorities under suspicion of fraud. Here, with his wife Jen and son Ross, his mother Nieve, lawyer Ruth, and old family friend Tom, William tries to regroup and fight for his reputation and future, but just as we know from movies such as Death at a Funeral and August Osage County, when you get family back together like that, there are skeletons that come out of closets you never knew had been built. If you’re familiar with the story of Allan Hubbard or Bernie Maddoff at all then that kinda sums Campbell up nicely.

The play was written by Arthur Meek, who wrote the very well received play On the Upside Down of the World. He wrote Trees while living in New York, courtesy of the Harriet Friedlander New York Residency which he received in 2012.

The thing I like about Trees is that it doesn’t tell a “typical” story but instead tells the story of how this fraud investigation affects his family - his wife, his mother, his son - and how it all falls apart around him. Something a little bit different, and it works. And, this play is FUNNY. It’s almost black humour with the snide observations and one-liners, but not quite. I laughed more than I was expecting to, let’s put it that way, even when I knew I ought to have been horrified by the scene.

And what really propels the play from good to great is the acting. Michael Hurst et al are solid, delivering lines and attitude that perfectly match the pace of the script.

Basically, it was so good, you guys. It’s quite possibly the best play I’ve seen by ATC so far. It is on now at the Maidment Theatre until September 27.

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Avenged Sevenfold’s New Single “This Means War”

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(Wow, it’s a post by me! Still alive, here all week, etc.)

Since I reviewed I Killed the Prom Queen’s album, my mind has been somewhat opened to other metal-inclined tunes that come our Jawkward way. Which makes it sound like I’ve never listened to metal or it’s ilk before, but that’s not true. I used to own a copy of MTV Headbangers Ball, Vol. 2, remember? So anyway I’ve been slowly catching up with the tunes and lo and behold, hello heavy metal!

“This Means War” is the third single off Avenged Sevenfold’s album Hail to the King, which was released almost a year ago! It actually peaked at #3 on our music charts. So I’ll be going back and looking for that to listen to.

I’m not much of a music blogger as it turns out, but surely we can recognise when something is delicious pain au chocolat tunes to our ears, right? This is pretty much like Metallica with their heavy catchy guitar riffs and hooky chorus that takes you through the entire six minutes. There’s an amazing solo about two-thirds of the way through, so at least stick it out for that even if this genre of music isn’t really your thing.

If you’d forgotten - or, like me, not even realised that A7X had another album out - here is “This Means War” to refresh your memory. And, if you’re new to metal or returning like a long-lost acquaintance such as metal and I were in high school, welcome back. This is a banging track to reconcile your tastes.

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NZ COMEDY FESTIVAL: Le Comique

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So tonight I went to Le Comique at the NZ Comedy Festival, the one and only show I will be attending because of factors both in my control and out of. It was advertised as two hours but turned out to be three, with a 13.5 minute intermission after an hour.

First half was good, second half was… quite long, as you would imagine if your first half was one hour and your second half two hours.

Le Comique has been going on for four years now and it was my first time checking it out, and actually any NZ Comedy Festival show for that matter. I’ll be honest, it was a bit of a mixed bag. It was hosted by Marcel Lucont, who I really dig now that I’ve seen him in real life other than a two minute clip on YouTube. He basically just says what everyone is thinking and gives no f**s about who he offends, if he offends anyone which he doesn’t because he’s just saying what everyone is thinking. Lucont is so quick at improv too that it was hard not to walk away thoroughly impressed. He has some really good songs and poems, too. So French. True connoisseur of the amour and vin rouge.

Lucont was supported in true comedy show style by the Hairy Soul Man & Band (HSMB) aka Kai Smythe and a group of musicians some in shadow some not. Smythe’s voice is amazing and so is his facial hair, but his comedy goods on offer tonight were not to my tastes. There is something for everyone, and Hairy Soul Man band is not for me. The musicians were incredible, though, and I think outside of a comedy circuit I’d appreciate the group way more than I did tonight. Which defeats the purpose of their existence so I guess I’ll just chalk it up to some sort of difference and we’ll both move on with our lives.

James Nokise was the first act up, a Welsh/Samoan stand-up who has apparently been making the rounds for years and years, now. All I have to say about him is, where have I been all this time?! He was hilarious, and I feel that HSMB should not have come before him because Nokise was top class compared to that. Mata can vouch for his Samoan truthiness.

Next up was Sara Pascoe, who I have been looking forward to all festival and whose solo show I am sadly missing out on when it starts next week. So I’m very glad I got to see her tonight. She was quite good, lovely accent, talking about some real neuroticisms that women might have in relationships (and that she has in relationships) along with some pretty out there anecdotes from her childhood. It’s all kept lighthearted with her delivery, though, and the speed at which we move from laugh to laugh keeps you on your toes and before you know it, it’s over all too soon :( You guys going to her show next week are going to have an amazing time!

Intermission time.

Up after the break was Marcel Lucont wanting to give away an Old Mout cider package and a $100 voucher for Sale St bar… but Hairy Soul Man Band dude kept picking nonexistent seat numbers. It went on for about fifteen minutes. It went on long enough for you to wonder if it was rigged as part of the comedy show or if it actually was a legitimate stuff up by whoever put the numbers together.

In the end they went with the closest number (E32) and the lucky dude from Devon, England got to win a round of Guess Who against Lucont. Verryyy niiiice.

There was Trygve Wakenshaw (say that backwards) who turned out to be some zany supernaturally wiry limbic dude who used miming and minimal sound effects to turn your brain against itself. Never thought you’d feel physically grossed out and squicky by a man finding, grooming, and then disembowelling an invisible horse? THINK AGAIN. It took me a while to warm up to the act but once I embraced the crazy (which admittedly took a while), it wasn’t too bad.

After him was James Acaster, who I don’t remember much of due to the dude next to me spilling a rather generous amount of beer on my leg and my coat which really pissed me off. Normally I would enjoy Acaster’s style of delivery and humour, and I did enjoy the act once I made myself comfortable with my new state of being (which was wet leg - tangent: wet clothes are ok if ALL your clothes are wet because then you can just convert to a state of ok all my clothes are wet, but partially wet clothes are just the worst because your brain is like WHAT AM I ADJUSTING TO FFS). So I can safely say I would attend another James Acaster show.

The night was closed by hospital DJ Ivan Brackenbury, who was HILARIOUS. What a top headliner especially if you haven’t already seen his material. He had me in stitches! Not actual ones although wouldn’t it be great if you were in hospital needing stitches and there was DJ Ivan Brackenbury to help you along with your healing process.

Interspersed in all of this were Jackie Van Beek and Jonny Brugh who were Ivan and Eva, the Eastern European pair pulling around dead weight horse Sylvia. It was all a little bit random for me to be honest.

SPOILER ALERT LOOK AWAY NOW -

Sylvia turns out to be missing at the end of the sketch which begs the question - was Sylvia the horse Trygve Wakenshaw groomed and eventually found out was a unicorn and then did unspeakable things to?

OK IT’S SAFE NOW -

Le Comique had great fantastic moments that came close to not really outweighing the acts I didn’t care so much for, but it’s a show you should try to catch next Comedy Festival. It’s a rare chance to see comedians who are at the top of their game playing off each other, and adds a new level to the comedy you may or may not be accustomed to.

Leave a comment Posted on by Chloe Album Reviews, Music Talk

(Delayed) Music Monday: Kylie - Kiss Me Once

Kylie Minogue Kiss Me Once

Kylie
Kiss Me Once
Parlophone / Warner Bros.

Hello everyone, it’s me, Chloe! I know, where have I been all this time? But I am back, albeit with a slightly delayed edition of Music Monday. So without further ado, let us get into it.

I was NOT going to review this album, but to be honest I have a soft spot for Kylie. Pop music is what I grew up on, after all. Britney Spears, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys, FIVE, 911… list goes on. Do you guys remember The Moffatts? I do. I had their poster on my wall and everything.

BUT we are talking about Kylie here. Power pop dance queen Kylie. Do you remember back in the day when she was “Kylie Minogue”? Now she has one name and y’all know which Kylie we’re talking about. Move over Madonna.

Kiss Me Once is Kylie’s twelfth studio album, preceded by 2010’s Aprodite which I also own and yes, danced a lot to, shutupdon’tlookatme.

This is one of those albums with a whole bunch of songs. REALLY CHLOE? Wow. But yes, really. And while you’re listening to it, it’ll seem kinda derivative and pop, like yeah super smooth and catchy tunes Kylez, but y’know, how are you different to any other pop star who uses synths and has Pharrell channelling his Daft Punk influence behind the producers desk?

And then five hours later you’re lying in bed trying to sleep but there’s this tune in your head, like completely foreign, kind of like hearing this solemn yet moving song and not being able to place it and it plays in your head for about twenty seconds before it hits you - it’s the Game of Thrones theme song and you don’t even watch the damn show.

Except it’s the Kylie edition. And you’ll have remembered a lot more lyrics than you thought, too.

The album is about love and also sex, but more the romantic notion of love and the eventual sexytiemz, rather than S-E-X-X sex. It’s just really funky and smooth, upbeat and happy and just really… carefree, which may be a reflection of her new contract with Roc Nation Management.

Also of note re: Roc Nation - it’s Jay-Z’s label, which goes to explain the sort of hip-hop dubstep funk style thing going on with tracks such as “Sexercize.” This unfortunately did not jive with me on the music front but that’s okay.

Other producers on the album are Sia Furler, who executive-produced the album, and Ariel Reichstadt (who produced Haim’s album) for “If Only,” as well as MNEK on “Feels So Good” - and this wide variety of musical smorgasbordism shows across the album’s 11 tracks.

My favourites are “Les Sex” which I did NOT expect to like as much as I do, but it’s so ridic catchy. Close on its heels is “I Was Gonna Cancel” (our Pharrell track) which is one of those songs that you can mindlessly bop to, but take a closer listen to the lyrics:

Just hop out of the bed, go ahead face the day,
Who cares what you know?
Don’t let that in the way - no way!
Shut out all the doubt, just get up and go.
What’s on the other side?
You will never know unless you, go, go, go, girl…

I really do feel like there is a Message here until it gets to a far too repetitive pre-chorus, but you’ll never know unless you go, go, go - damn it.

And a reeeeeally nice song - actually all the songs on the album are nice, apart from “Mr President” ugh let’s just forget that’s on there - is “Beautiful,” which is a true-to-it’s-name ballad duet with the one and only singer of love*, Enrique Iglesias. It is honestly SO BEAUTIFUL albeit a little bit sad and also has sent AutoTune to therapy for being abused so bad. Okay maybe it’s not that great.

Kiss Me Once is a disco hit, although someone has poisoned my mind so every time I think of Kylie I think of gay men dancing to dark and smoky rooms with disco lights and a giant disco ball and overall it’s a really good time, but this may be a disservice to actual gay clubs which I do not frequent enough to speak upon with authority.

Anyway, I really enjoyed it and sometimes it’s good to just get back to your roots, if your roots are a genre-bending fun ride of IDGAF.

THREE-POINT-SEVEN-FIVE out of FIVE silent LOLs

*Singer of love if you are my age. If you are older it may be Elvis Presley, if you are younger I don’t know and I’m a little afraid to find out.

1 Comment Posted on by Chloe Film Reviews, Movie Talk

Film Review: NON-STOP

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Last night I went to see NON-STOP (you have to read it in all caps because it is HIGH OCTANE stuff). It was actually pretty good, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

If you’re not familiar with the premise, Liam Neeson is an air marshal who likes a bit of the drink and has lots of personal baggage of the emotional kind, the sort that you can’t just stow away in the overhead locker. Someone knows. When Liam Neeson boards his next flight, someone takes advantage. Now Liam Neeson has to stop them before a passenger dies, every twenty minutes until the ransom demand (150 million dollars) is paid.

I love action movies. Bang bang, a few laughs, a riveting build up to a satisfactory conclusion usually featuring explosions and cars flying through the air - it’s not difficult to sell to me. The plot doesn’t have to be fantastic but it does need to be somewhat realistic.

NON-STOP has this in the first two acts, in spades, even. Liam Neeson has this kind of character down pat - a flawed, troubled human who has a heart of gold and seeks redemption in his current situation. It’s really well set up; the writers and director are careful to only dole out bits and pieces so that you’re not smacked with exposition in the first ten minutes. The flight through NON-STOP is enjoyable even if you don’t sit back and relax because the tension is so edge-of-your-seat.

However, the third act falls apart completely. It is as if the writers thought, “WHAT IF WE GET LIAM NEESON IN THIS MOVIE AND, LIKE, HE HAS A GUN, AND HAS TO STOP SOMEONE FROM DYING EVERY TWENTY MINUTES AND ZOMG EXPLOSIONS?!?!” and everyone else thought that was an amazing idea (well, it is) and so they wrote it and then they thought, “Oh, balls, we actually need a denouement,” and their idea was to make the entire audience suspend their disbelief at an altitude higher than what any commercial airline flies at over the Atlantic.

Did. Not. Work.

It is a bit disappointing really because the movie was very, very good up until that point. The first and second acts build up suspense and suspicion and then peel the layers back one by one like a mystery advent calendar that has only one goodie in the entire 31 days. Having the bad guy’s motive finally uncovered in such a dumbfounding and anti-climactic way was almost like an ice bath tipped over your senses.

That was the only flaw in an otherwise solid movie. The action was, as I said before, HIGH OCTANE and there is this one scene in particular that I really want Mythbusters to have a crack at next season. The cast was great, too, a lot of recognisable faces and of course Julianne Moore and Michelle Dockery. Dockery plays Nancy, an awesome flight attendant and she is so amazing. Every time she came on-screen I squealed with happiness. If I had a point of contention with the cast it’s that they might have wasted such awesome actors on a movie that is really Liam Neeson’s own. BUT - is that really a thing? Either way, I’m not complaining.

Could have done with a bit more Nancy, though.

NON-STOP: Well worth the price of admission (I got in for $9 because it was Movie of the Week) but the careful threading and set-up comes undone by a somewhat silly motive.

FOUR out of FIVE Silent LOLs

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Film Review: HER

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Her
by Spike Jonze
Warner Bros. Studios
2013

I saw Her at the Academy Cinemas on a cool evening, which sounds like the beginning of a beautiful date but instead was two hours of amused and bemused chortling, wonderment, thoughtfulness, and constant timekeeping. As the poster above notes, it is a Spike Jonze love story, which should be fair enough warning.

The Academy Award-nominated film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Theodore Twombly, a sensitive and thoughtful man who dictates super personal letters to people who apparently hire him and his workmates to write super personal letters for their loved ones. He is supported by a stellar cast of women: Amy Adams as his longtime friend and neighbour, also named Amy; Rooney Mara as his childhood sweetheart and now ex-wife Catherine; Olivia Wilde as a woman Theodore goes on a date with; and Scarlett Johanssen as the Artificial Intelligence he falls in love with, Samantha.

Her was nominated for five Oscars this year, but left with only the Best Original Screenplay award. This was probably the most appropriate out of the lot for Jonze to win; the film as a whole was a mixed bag for me. It was a little too long at just over two hours and could probably have done with maybe a quarter hour or so of extra chopping. However, the script touches upon something that has been maybe lesser explored in recent times: can man fall in love with machine? What role does robotics and computing play in our lives as technological advancements become all the more common each day? Do you need a physical entity beside you to experience a satisfying relationship? What is a satisfying relationship?

Despite this admirable tack, and bearing in mind that Jonze’s style is sort of fantasy mixed with a dash of the surreal and stirred in with the beautiful, the problem that roils around in my head when thinking of Her, is, I’m not entirely certain what Jonze was trying to tackle with the premise. If the Best Picture Oscar went to a movie that was exactly that – speaking in terms of cinematography and beauty, then by god give him all the awards. But as the Best Picture encompasses the theme, the plot, the structure, the very story that comes to life and unfolds on the screen before us: well, it missed the mark for me on that one. Yes, it’s all about this guy and how he’s alone and withdrawn and then he falls in love with his operating system but you know what? His love interest is a voice. Sure, a really sexy voice but still a voice nonetheless. The lack of physicality is addressed in the movie, and in a rather touching way, actually, but it’s going to take me a long time to get used to watching a movie about a man who talks his issues through with a voice. It just dragged the movie out when I wasn’t able to see that interaction between two people, one of whom has rather serious emotional issues.

What I did enjoy was the acting, which was outstanding from all parties – it was really great casting with this movie; I must give special mention to Chris Pratt as the co-worker at Theodore’s job – and I particularly enjoyed my new favourite Rooney Mara in all her nostalgic-flashback-Lomography-tinted glory, even though she only had one real scene she was so good. So good!

The colouring and tone of Her is another very well done aspect of the film: it is set in 2025, but the characters are dressed in a sort of 70′s throwback costume, with high-waisted pants and dowdy cardigans against bright coloured shirts. It’s a juxtaposition to the usual sci-fi fare with hoverboards and neon buildings, and normalises the film, focusing the story as if the man/OS relationship was the only out-there notion we could manage at any one time. And the whole film itself is very warm colours and beautiful, gorgeous bokeh, very nostalgic in the way that it invites you to be cocooned in the world of Theodore and Samantha. “Come into my realfantasy land,” it says, and you feel safe and comforted and happy even though this is a movie about one man and a voice in his ear.

If you’re a fan of Spike Jonze and the off-beat, Her is probably for you. If not, wait for the $5 DVD rental. THREE-and-a-HALF out of FIVE Silent LOLs.

Leave a comment Posted on by Chloe Album Reviews, Music Talk

Music Monday: Apocalypse Soon

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Major Lazer
Apocalypse Soon EP
Mad Decent Records

He came, he saw, he lazered his way into mainstream consciousness. Declaring himself immortal and the one and only Lazer, he struck back against General Rubbish not once or twice or even thrice, but four times he maintained an offensive against the musical sensibilities of the general public. And after he had freed the universe from the shackles of sub-par harmonies, he realised that everything in life comes full circle… and thus… Major Lazer prophesied the coming of the Apocalypse…

Where will Major Lazer take us next on our journey through Jamaican dancehall? To prepare for the end of the world and the impending zombie apocalypse as history repeats itself, the answer is obviously to dance yourself to the death in the company of the likes of Pharrell Williams and Sean Paul. Can you think of a better way to go? Diplo doesn’t think so.

With five tracks clocking in at just under twenty minutes long, Apocalypse Soon is a get in/get out celebration of life and good times. Each song is different from the next , taking you on a round trip of hip-hop, rap, reggae, and head-spinning beats.

First track “Aerosol Can” features Pharrell competing with the percussion beat for who/which can rap faster, and once you’ve just caught up to that, second track “Come On To Me” kicks the EP into full gear with Sean Paul’s characteristic vocals and style backlaid with some good old reggae.

Third track “Sound Bang” is a little bit of an odd one, opening with ukulele of all things before morphing into an epileptic frenzy of electronic dance music. Probably best for when you are stoned.

“Lose Yourself” pulls the frenetic pace back a little bit, and is probably the most earworm out of all the songs, which means it is also the most annoying to listen to over and over with its repetitive beat, and EP closer “Dale Asi” sounds a lot like a Pitbull song (just because of the Spanish, really), but which I think loosely translates into “do it like this” - is it maybe a jab at Pitbull about how to make the espanol in the musicos?

THREE out of FIVE silent LOLs

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