learnsim-blog

[addictivecontradiction]

Muriel's wedding, 1994

[oceanusborealis]

Population 11: Season 1 – TV Review

TL;DR – While it gets messy in the middle, it starts and ends strong, and has a fundamentally entertaining cast. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 3.5 out of 5. Disclosure – I paid for the STAN service that viewed this series. Population 11 Review – If there is one thing that Australia can do very well, it is the mystery set in the Outback. Indeed, some of my earliest TV memories are of the wild and wonderful…

[movienized-com]

Population 11

Population 11 (Serie 2024) #ChaiHansen #RickDonald #StephenCurry #DarrenGilshenan #KatrinaMilošević #ChristopherKirby Mehr auf:

Serie Jahr: 2024- (März) Genre: Comedy / Krimi Hauptrollen: Chai Hansen, Rick Donald, Stephen Curry, Darren Gilshenan, Katrina Milošević, Christopher Kirby, William Zappa, Geneviève Lemon, Pippa Grandison, Emily Taheny, Steve Le Marquand, Tony Briggs, Fiona Choi, Sachin Joab, Karis Oka, Perry Mooney … Serienbeschreibung: Wenn ein Mann aus einer kleinen, abgelegenen Stadt verschwindet, wird…

[genevieveetguy]

When I lived in Porpoise Spit, I used to sit in my room for hours and listen to ABBA songs. But since I've met you and moved to Sydney, I haven't listened to one Abba song. That's because my life is as good as an Abba song. It's as good as Dancing Queen.

Muriel's Wedding, P.J. Hogan (1994)

[paradise-bi-the-dashboard-lightt]

Here is a supercut of The Wizard and I from the musical Wicked. It features every lead actress from the UK & Australia If anyone is missing that is because no audio exists of them to my knowledge. Each part of the song was randomly assigned to each actress. Under the cut is the order of appearance:

PLEASE DO NOT POST THIS ON ANY OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA OR YOUTUBE.

Alexia Khadime 

Alice Fearn 

Amy Ross

Nikki Bently 

Nikki Davis Jones 

Idina Menzel 

Kerry Ellis 

Amanda Harrison 

Willemijn Verkaik 

Rachel Tucker 

Pippa Grandison 

Ashleigh Gray 

Jacqueline Hughes 

Jemma Rix 

Emma Hatton 

Jennifer DiNoia 

Patrice Tipoki

Louise Dearman 

Laura Pick

[everymovie2020]

Dating the Enemy (1996)

Date watched:  1 January 2019

This is a little-remembered Australian gem of a comedy that came out in the blessed year of 1996, starring a super hot Guy Pearce, pre-Hollywood, and the wonderful Claudia Karvan, who Hollywood has never been blessed with because SHE'S OURS, OKAY.

So when I say that the glory days of Australian cinema were 1993 to 1996, the trio of movies I'm referring to are Priscilla, Muriel's Wedding and Dating the Enemy.  You know. The classics.

Also – my DVD version of this is so, so bad.  It is still in 4:3 format, it looks like it was recorded from a video even though it's a legit DVD copy – but I'll take it, because there's literally nothing else.  Maybe they'll release a Blu-Ray someday.

OMFG I just did a search and there's a newer version available!  I'm going to have to buy it to get rid of my terrible copy. I hope it's in widescreen!  Please god, let it be in widescreen!

Anyway, plot:

Tash and Brett meet through mutual friends – he's about to host a new music TV show (which, had it been a real show in 1996, I totally would've watched) and she's a science journalist.  They have nothing in common but they pretty much fall head over heels for each other, love at first sight kind of thing.

Fast forward a year, and things aren't fantastic.  Brett's show is a success but the fame has gone to his head a bit, and he's being circled by a model named Collette who wants to fuck his brains out, and is quite open about that fact. Mad respect to Collette.  She's a woman who knows what she wants.

Tash's career is kind of stagnating, and their relationship is stagnating because he's kind of full of himself and she's a bit of a neurotic disaster, so they have an epic falling out on a boat in Sydney Harbour (because this is Australia and where are movies set?  Sydney – sorry Melbourne, but you're not pretty enough) and decide to break up. Anyway, magic intervenes, and through the power of a full moon (NB:  if you're in Sydney during a full moon having a break-up, I can't guarantee this won't happen IRL), they switch bodies overnight.  So she's in his body, and he's in hers.

Hilarity then ensues because it's Freaky Friday but with a man and woman!

This is what I mean by the golden age of Australian cinema, like, they're putting out trash like Ladies in Black and forgoing their bread and butter – COMEDY.

So Tash and Brett have to live their lives, because you can't just tell people you've switched places.  Of course, things go wrong at work, and they're both pretty mad at each other and not having a great time, but then they both hit rock bottom – Tash, in Brett's body, ends up sleeping with Colette, and Brett, in Tash's body, ends up sleeping with his best friend (it's so WEIRD).  Because of that, they realise they need to get their shit together and work out wtf to do, and as this is a romantic comedy, one thing leads to another and badabingbada boom they're falling back in love and having sex – which is so, so weird if you think about it – and then Sydney's full moon decides that they've had enough torture and switches them back.

It's a really great movie and I love it with all of my heart, and I'm going to buy a brand new DVD version of it to get rid of my other shitty copy.

Also – Guy Pearce was never hotter than in this movie.  You're welcome, America, for all of these gifts that Australia bestows upon you.

Soundtrack classics:

[kwebtv]

Brides of Christ  -  ABC  (Aus)  -  September 4, 1991  -  October 9, 1991

Drama / Miniseries  (6 episodes)

Running Time:  60 minutes

Stars:

The Nuns:  

Brenda Fricker as Sister Agnes

Sandy Gore as Mother Ambrose 

Josephine Byrnes as Diane/Sister Josephine

Lisa Hensley as Veronica/Sister Paul

Melissa Jaffer as Sister Attracta

Penny Stehli as Sister Patrick

Joy Hruby as Sister Polycarp

Caroline Gillmer as Sister Philomena

Beth Champion Sister Clare

Michelle Pettigrove as Sister Francine

The Girls:  

Naomi Watts as Frances Hefferman

Kym Wilson as Rosemary Fitzgerald

Melissa Thomas as Bridget Maloney

Pippa Grandison as Bernadette

Kirsty McGregor as Caroline

Vanessa Collier as Jacinta

Others:

Simon Burke as Jack Delahunty

Philip Quast as Ian MdGregor

Mary MaloneyPat Bishop as Mary Maloney

Russell Crowe as Dominic Maloney

Anne Tenney as Liz Hefferman

Michael Winchester as Martin Tierney

[frei-und-schwerelos]

The Longest-Running Elphaba’s in the World: Backed Up With Data

Have you ever gone like, “Damn this person’s been Elphaba for a long ass time. Is she the longest-running Elphaba??? 🤔” And then you google and you see people saying Jackie Burns. Dee Roscioli. Willemijn Verkaik. Rachel Tucker. Jemma Rix. SO WHAT’S THE ANSWER?!? Well folks, now that corona has given me time, I put this to bed with data. 

First off, the basis of this is an extrapolation by counting days in the role.  I did count the exact number of performances for one person in one run (ahem Willemijn in 2017) and she did 170 performances. The data puts her at 173 so it’s pretty close and I ran with it. For people who were standby first, I assumed that they went on 15% of the time (also extrapolating from Willemijn’s attendance in 2017) and the general assumption that 15% sounds reasonable. 

LONGEST RUNNING FROM FIRST TO LAST PERFORMANCE

Here’s where I look at longest-running Elphaba’s by time in the role from their first performance or first day as standby to last performance. (I only sampled these people but I know some like Alyssa Fox already have more days between their first/last performance than Rachel.) 

Jennifer DiNoia (4548 days and counting)

Willemijn Verkaik (3552)

Jackie Burns (3153)

Kerry Ellis (2970)

Dee Roscioli (2721)

Jemma Rix (2557)

Rachel Tucker (2497)

LONGEST RUNNING BY TIME IN THE ROLE

Now I’m only counting days in the role and disregarding any time away. For standbys, I’m counting the day they started, not their first performance in that run. 

Jennifer DiNoia (2731 and counting)

Willemijn Verkaik (2083)

Jemma Rix (1972)

Dee Roscioli (1608)

Rachel Tucker (1407)

Jackie Burns (1313)

Fun fact: The longest break from the role in this list goes to Jackie Burns with 4.5 years (2013-2017). The rest did it pretty consistently. Both Rachel and Will had a break of 2.5 years (October 2012 - September 2015 and July 2014 - January 2017)

Tl;DR Data says that Jennifer DiNoia is the longest-running Elphaba by time period. But what about the number of performances? Jenny started off as an understudy/standby while Will, Jackie, and Rachel were lead for their entire tenure. Now we get into assumptions, extrapolation, and guessing. 

LONGEST RUNNING BY NUMBER OF PERFORMANCES

Arguably the measurement most people use and care about. Like I mentioned above, days in the role is a pretty good indicator of the number of performances but we’re working with the assumption that they pretty much miss one show a week. Collectively, when you take into account vacations and time off, this might actually be the case. 

Willemijn Verkaik (1864)

Rachel Tucker (1407)

Jemma Rix (1360)

Dee Roscioli (1321.55)

Jackie Burns (1313)

Jennifer DiNoia (1165.55 and counting)

HOW DID I COME TO THIS CONCLUSION: People like Rachel and Jackie were easy; they always did eight shows a week and they were always lead. So their number is the same as days in the role. 

Willemijn and Jemma did six shows a week internationally (in DEU, NL, AUS). So I found out how many weeks they were in the role (divide days in role by 7) and then minus that number from their days in the role to account for how they only did six shows a week. 

Jemma did four shows a week in Sydney where she shared the role equally with Patrice Tipoki and Pippa Grandison. So I found the number of the weeks again, and then added that to ‘days in the role’ (for the 8 performances a week). Then I divided the resulting number by 2. 

For people who did any standby time (Jenny and Dee), I multiplied their days in the role as a standby with 0.15 (extrapolated standby rate that I came up with earlier.) Jemma got two shows a week as a standby so I multiplied her days in the role by 0.2 (2/8 shows a week = 1/4) 

CONCLUSIONS

How cool is it that the three longest-running Elphaba’s in the world aren’t American?? (Ignoring the fact that international productions have far less turnover than Broadway)

Longest-running Elphaba in the world by performances: Willemijn Verkaik. 

Longest-running Elphaba in the world by time: Jennifer DiNoia. 

ADDENDUMS/DISCLAIMERS

The main question when calculating the number for performances is “how often did these performers call out?”. Some are much more consistent than others and this model just assumes everyone calls out the same amount. That obviously isn’t true but this is just an average. I don’t have the data to actually know their true rates. For example. if Jackie’s attendance is actually 90%, she’d have 1350 performances. 

If you have any questions, see anything wrong/inaccurate, or are pretty skeptical and wanna talk about my thought process through this, feel free to hit me up. If there’s anyone you think should be counted here, let me know as well. 

DATA AS OF MARCH 22, 2020

(If anyone wants to check out the math involved)

[pennywatchestvandmovies]

[addictivecontradiction]

Muriel's wedding, 1994

[everythingisamovie]

[oceanusborealis]

Population 11: Outback UFO Tours – TV Review

TL;DR – This weird and wonderful first episode hooked me in to see what wild ride we are about to go on. ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. Disclosure – I paid for the STAN service that viewed this series Population 11 Review – If there is one thing that Australia does very well, it is the mystery set in the Outback. Indeed, some of my earliest TV memories are of the wild and wonderful Jeopardy,…

[lets-go-to-the-movies]

[jennylandia]

Pippa Grandison

[myshowzip]

Franswa Sharl

Franswa Sharl: Keeping the position of number one son requires a certain amount of ingenuity. Twelve year old Greg has inherited his father’s competitive streak. On a family holiday to Fiji they have different ideas about where Greg should focus his talents. When his creative pursuits fail to amuse his father Greg goes to bizarre lengths to win him back. Based on a true story.

[ozianscamera]