This morning I woke up feeling marginally better than I did yesterday, having a lay in helped too. When I got up Sarah was in the kitchen and we had a chat over a cup of tea, then she went to the study to do some uni work and I got myself together.
I sat and spent the morning chilling out watching The IT Crowd, then left to head off to take a tram to the city, to go to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). I’d not long arrived and was just mooching through the shops on the way to Fed Square, when I got a call from Tom; he’d gone for his first day of training at his new job, but had finished early (he’d expected to be there until 5, but they were done by 1!?!), so we met up and went to the pub for a celebratory pint. He told me all about his training and how lame the job seemed, but we figured it would do for the time being and it wouldn’t stop him applying for other things in the mean time.
He decided to join me for a bit at ACMI, so we went to the Screen Worlds exhibition, which focuses on the history of film – from the days of shadow puppets to up to the minute film technology. It was a really good exhibit, with lots of things to look at, films to watch, things to touch and buttons to press! I got particularly excited by the section on Aussie influences, especially Dame Edna, Kylie, Neighbours and Mad Max! They also had a section all about gaming, with all sorts of games and consoles from over the years. I had a go at Tetris which was fun, then Tom and I had a battle on Quake and I lost epically – I have never been particularly good at that sort of game!
My favourite part of the whole exhibition was a demonstration of animation, where in a little room, we came across a large model, made up of lots of really cool little models of frogs, mice and various other animals; it looked pretty uninteresting at first, but then the whole thing slowly started spinning and suddenly some very trippy music started playing, the spinning got faster and the whole room was filled with strobe lighting, which made the model become animated and come to life – it was sooooooo cool; the frogs were dancing, the mice jumping, platypuses diving into a bucket, cockatoos waving and lots of other stuff leaping about! I was so enthralled I stayed and watched it three times!
Tom left and went home, I stayed and looked about a bit more at the different parts of the exhibition. I then went and found another part of the centre which screens films for free, mostly independent films and documentaries I think; certainly not blockbusters. I was taken to my own little booth, with a leather sofa, massive plasma screen, DVD/VHS player and headphones. Nicola had told me about a film she had seen there called ‘Mary And Max’, which she said I should see, so I selected it from the menu and sat back to enjoy it. It was amazing. It was a full length stop-motion animation by Adam Elliot (Australia’s answer to Nick Park, born in Melbourne) about the story of a little Australian girl from Melbourne and her New York pen friend, a 44 year old man with Asperger’s, set in the late 1970s. No wonder it has won awards, it was so moving; one moment I was laughing, the next nearly in tears. I loved it. After it finished, I watched a little docco about the film and how it was made, which made me love it even more.
Feeling uplifted, I left ACMI to head home and on my way through Fed Square suddenly noticed that I was on the big screen on the side of one of the buildings! Fed Square often has odd and unusual art installations; today’s appeared to be a hidden camera projecting an image of the square onto the big tv screen! Fair enough! I hopped on a tram and made my way to Ascotvale.
Back at the house, I found Sarah and Becs in the kitchen – Becs was preparing dinner (it’s not that we force her to cook, she just loves cooking!). We chatted about our days; Becs had had a bad day at school, Sarah had been flat out preparing for tomorrow’s big event and I told them all about Mary And Max. When Becs had put the lasagne in the oven, we went and chilled in the lounge, watching the news. A couple of minutes later, one of Becs’ friends arrived – Sophie.
When dinner was ready, Tom emerged and we sat down at the table to enjoy the spread. It was very good, although Tom was a bit distressed that it was a veggie lasagne! We then sat and watched Masterchef (of course!) and once again threw lots of comments at the screen, particularly as our least favourite contestant was up for the ‘pressure challenge’ where she could be evicted (or whatever the phrase is!). Then Big Bang Theory came on, so Tom and I watched that whilst the girls carried on chatting and drinking wine (they don’t get BBT either!). We finished off the evening with a beer and some Family Guy and then finally the film ‘The Wolfman’, which was incredibly predictable and surprisingly unscary – although Tom and I both had a cheese sandwich whilst watching it and we did discuss whether the cheese would give us nightmares!
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