Job of work

 

The Mule

When you have lost your business and someone offers you a job of work, which pays increasingly well each time you take a trip and follow their instructions, it seems as if you might have a dream job.

Clint Eastwood plays the part of a horticulturalist, Earl Stone, whose business, along with his life, has fallen on hard times. The job of work involves driving to the border city of El Paso, leaving his vehicle in a workshop for a time, collecting it later and driving back to Illinois. He is instructed to leave the vehicle unattended in a specified place for a specified length of time. 

I was highly entertained by this movie but realised much later that I had apparently missed the whole point of the story. I found it satirical in a sense, which amused me no end. The repetition of each trip to El Paso, the same old visit to the panel workshop, the invitation to the drug baron’s palatial residence with wine, women and maybe not too much song.

Time passes and Earl Stone grows uneasy about the legal ramifications of this easy money; he’s been able to buy a new truck and no hard physical work is involved. Each trip he finds the package of cash grows thicker thus financing the new truck and enabling him to reclaim his home.

Eventually the drug law enforcement people suspect Earl’s behaviour and there are some amusing scenes where only quick thinking and smooth talking extricate Earl from a very tricky situation. This of course cannot last forever and after the death of his ex-wife, which sees Earl realise how self-centred his life has been, the game is up and smooth talking no longer does the trick.

At the end we see Earl tending day lilies in the prison garden. A fitting finale, closing the circle, where at the beginning, Earl’s horticultural business was growing day lilies.

Day lilies, I have to say, hold very little appeal to me.

Inhaling the pungent smell of the peppercorn tree

On my way into the city, my movie ticket tucked firmly in my purse, I turn the corner into the station street and immediately I’m assailed by the pungent smell of a peppercorn tree. This large, old tree, one of three, sits at the edge of the footpath in front of a small block of flats, its branches hanging down above the heads of passers-by.

The smell of peppercorns often takes me back to my pre-school childhood. Peppercorn trees would be the first trees I could recognise and name. I spent most of my very first years with my city grandparents; no trees on their small inner-suburban block, peppercorns or otherwise.

On the farm with my country grandparents it was different entirely. A child’s world is a small one and the peppercorn tree which stood outside the farmhouse kitchen door seemed enormous.  It provided cool shade in the summer and one branch had a swing roped to it; occasionally I would be pushed in the swing by somebody with a few minutes to spare. The tree also sheltered the meat safe, not exactly a Coolgardie safe, but a close relative where meat, butter and milk were kept in the coolest place possible. No refrigeration in the farmhouse in those days.

Leaving the peppercorn trees and memories of my early childhood behind, I crossed the road to the train station.

No hitches to my movie plans today; although there was a short version of musical chairs in the back row of the cinema when a woman with mobility issues sat where she fancied and everyone else in the row made their own arrangements.

I thought The Children Act was a film well worth seeing and on my rating system; I gave it a score of 8.5.   Emma Thompson was excellent, the dedicated family court judge who became the person forced to acknowledge she had failed to deal with her personal relationships. A very moving film. 

 There was one jarring note at the end of the film when the boy lay dying in the hospice; make-up could surely have made a better choice of that terrible grey pallor which made him look like an actor in a cheap B-grade movie.

I left the cinema, having achieved what I first set out to do a week ago; to mark the occasion I lunched at a nearby French-style charcuterie.

Getting away from it all.....

Whoopeeeeee!

I’m going off on a short vacation; a five-day vacation; the first since July last year, which was only an overnighter.  All this came about following a phone call from the Mah-jong Queen.

I am off to the capital of the north-east and the main event will be a film at the Swanpool cinema. The Swanpool cinema is a blast from the past.  There is nothing glamorous about the building; it sits off to the side of the road about in the middle of the town centre. It runs old fashioned slide advertising before the main movie and  during interval  patrons can walk through a door to a kitchen and dining area. They saunter down to a hatch in the wall opening from the kitchen, order a tea or coffee, look around and find a chair at a table and enjoy a chat or a discussion about the first feature. 

And what’s the big deal with the movie?  It was shown at the last MIFF and the subject is a man who used to come into our workplace; at that time he had an art gallery not far from where the Mah-jong Queen ran her office support business. We’re talking last century here; so it will be interesting to see and hear the story, as seen through his eldest son’s eyes/camera.

As for the rest of the time will be filled in on my short vacation?  Who knows how it will be filled in? 

It’s a step forward for me as I will be travelling by train on the first extended trip since I was laid up in September. 

We will see how things turn out.

There is sure to be a blog post or two come out of this short country vacation.  All you have to do is live long enough for the posts to appear......

Tree stump carving, Hanging Rock Reserve Vic         File Photo: January 2007

August

Apart from being the month when horses in the southern hemisphere have a birthday arrangement, meaning regardless of the actual date on which they were born they all turn a year older on the first day of the month, August is the month which  trails along after July and takes up the calendar space before September.

It’s a winter month and has very little to recommend it unless you are a keen skier and like to make the most of any snow that has fallen on your favourite skiing mountain.  The AFL football season is drawing to a close and football fans are either buoyed up for finals hopes on their team’s recent form or they are attempting to resign themselves to yet another year of Not Making the Top Eight.

 On my August horizon is the prospect of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), which means poring over the paper program and deciding which films will make it onto my See This list.  I have already made my decisions and a handful of choices are waiting in the wings; those which fit into a short time frame at the very beginning of the Festival. I made these decisions a couple of weeks ago when my August plans revolved around a hospital stay early in the month. 

Nothing, it seems, is set in stone.  Last week I picked up some cold germs and although I have recovered from the worst of the cold I have been forced to face up to the idea the surgery might have to be postponed.  An August health hazard, the prime season for the ‘flu and common colds.

Sigh and groan.

 I wait to hear what happens next.

I am not happy. 

Movie at a premium price

At the moment I seem to be endlessly playing catch-up with movies which are at the very end of their run.

The latest in the Last-minute-movie Challenge was The Girl on the Train. As luck would have it I found an early session at The Palace Cinema in Balwyn (groan – no sleeping-in when I choose 10 am).  Originally starting out as the Balwyn Theatre, it opened in 1930 and met with a few problems in its early days.  It survived the early ups and downs and is currently undergoing a renovation and alterations which take the cinema goer back to the days of Art Deco.

All these renovations and improvements come at a cost, which is reflected in the ticket prices and the food on sale at the food bar.  Leaving home early meant a breakfast top up in the form of a large jam-filled lamington, offered at a bargain price. Just the thing for breakfast, a jam lamington. I snapped up the bargain and scoffed it down while waiting for the movie to begin.

The Girl on the Train was a deeply troubled woman trying, unsuccessfully, to come to terms with an unhappy past. In a weirdly voyeuristic manner she uses the train journey to spy on her old home and ex-husband, while maintaining the pretence, to her long suffering friend who has given her a roof over her head, that she is still working.

While I was not always entirely convinced by a few of the twists and turns in the plot, there was enough drama in the shape of binge drinking, erratic behaviour, violence, a body in a shallow, leafy grave and graphic grappling with a corkscrew being used as a murder weapon, to maintain my interest and prevent any nodding off during the movie.

 

Window at Balwyn Cinema

First farmers’ market and first movie of the year

A half hour tram ride followed by a short walk and the Veg-Out Farmer’s Market is waiting for to tempt buyers with the usual array of goods plus seasonal summer produce. 

Entrance to the market

Today a vendor is selling well-priced, almost-fresh fish from Lakes Entrance. The fish, whiting and flathead, were caught Thursday, packed Friday and being sold today in pre-packed quantities best suited to people with families and/or freezers.

Shoppers resting in  the shade

And now for the green egg stall

The Soup Kitchen larder is restocked with eggs, honey, potatoes, beans, peas and as a special seasonal treat a punnet of red currants is packed into the shopping bag. The red-currant seller suggests using them in salads where they team up well with cucumber. This suggestion will be passed on the Head Chef who may, or may not, be open to this idea.

Passing Luna Park on the way back to the tramstop.

The first movie of the year is a spur of the moment decision, prompted by a notice in today’s paper about a special screening at ACMI of the movie Tanna with the director taking questions after the screening. I had missed the first release of this film and having visited the island of Tanna in 2004, I was keen not to miss it this time.

The story is set around a time when it was kastom among the people of Tanna for marriages to be arranged and it shows the consequences for a young couple when they decide to follow their hearts.  People from the village of Yakel took the parts in the film and if you want to know more, read here; you will have to click on Home and then search for the article (life wasn't meant to be easy) it’s a wonderful insight into the story behind the making of the film.  I was delighted with Tanna, especially the wonderful cinematography.  The scenes showing the areas around the volcano, known as Yahul (the Spirit Mother) to the people of Yakel, were absolutely spectacular.  

The Q&A session after we had viewed the film took an unusual turn when Lingai, father of Selin, the lively little girl in the film, took questions in Tok Pisin, the language of Papua New Guinea. The translation was conducted through a member of the audience who lives/lived in PNG and spoke Tok Pisin; sitting in the audience listening to the back and forth of the conversation I felt I was sitting in a mini-united nations.

Walking outside into the heat and sun of a summer afternoon was a complete contrast to the cool and dark of the cinema.  A water slide has been set up in Federation Square for people, big and small, to cool off in and it was quite popular.

You pay your money, grab a tube and slide down between the pink dividers.

And it all finishes with a splash at the end.