It's Just Aliens, Folks

ADV 15sep12 Page 30 15sep12 1:42 ‘scape perspective What we’re reading... Ten things you didn’t know about Burnie artist Janine Morris LOU: MY WONDERFUL LIFE Lou Richards and Stephen Phillips Q Slattery Media Group, rrp $32.95 10 O HEAR Lou Richards T tell it, it certainly has been a wonderful life. Some is fact, some is Who inspires you? Do you have a favourite place? embroidery but it is all in 1 My children are my inspiration 7 The whole West Coast of Tasmania. the inimitable Collingwood rover’s eclectic, iconic because they are forever asking Most embarrassing moment? questions. style. Even without the 8 Every time my kids know more embellishments, it’s a What are you reading and how do than me! great story — a young you like to relax and wind down working-class boy growing 2 What has been a up in the depression who at the weekend? 9 defining moment becomes a Magpie legend, As a self-employed artist, weekends have in your life? following the family tradition. He captains the team to never existed for me but I love to hang Meeting my partner of a premiership and cements his place in history. His out with my kids and cook. I am usually nearly 15 years and stories of his family and life as a pub owner and his reading blogs and the Thesaurus. falling in love on varied media career are fascinating, whether you love Deal Island. the Pies or hate them. This is the updated version of the What thing couldn’t you live book, with some extra details at the end and more 3 without and what are your What do you pictures. This is an amazing book to read when you have three favourite things? 10 daydream only grown up knowing Lou from his Sunday sports show about? appearances and a great reminiscence for those who One thing I couldn’t live without is my grew up with him as a player and media megastar. self-esteem. As an artist I open my heart Stuff, storage CHLOE HOPE and soul for all to see. My three favourite space, peace things are my partner, Rick Eaves, and and string. our kids, Tallulah and Ned. THE SIMPLE THINGS Antonia Kidman and Sally Collings If you could invite anyone to ABC Books rrp $35 4 dinner, who would it be and what would you eat? ER sister may lead a jet- I think I would invite Captain Cook and I Hsetting, glamorous life, think he would love my curry. but Antonia Kidman prefers What do you know now that you to keep it simple by 5 wish you had known before? embracing baking, sewing and mending. With five Every day you choose what kind of day children under 14 and you will have, by what you say to another baby due in yourself. Make it positive! December, Kidman says she takes pride in managing a If you had a magic wand, what household — and now more than ever she is would you wish for? 6 embracing a simple way of life. The little sister to I would wish for a world that could exist Hollywood superstar Nicole has written a book called without the need for money. The Simple Things: Creating an organised home, a happy family and a life worth living. The 42-year-old author says she realised how important it is in our society to peel back the layers of modern life and to simplify it. ‘‘There’s a lot of pressure and parents and families today...financially, or on children to be achieving...it’s extraordinary.’’ Her book, is co- authored by Sally Collings, looks at how we can live It’s just aliens, folks a healthier and less hurried life. There are tips on organising your household and finances, to ideas for craft and gardening projects, making your own beauty treatments and just having fun with your kids. THE WATCH tough guy slow motion. Director: Akiva Schaffer Though many of the jokes JULIA CARLISLE Stars: Ben Stiller, Vince land, some of them feel like a Vaughn, Jonah Hill, Richard game of penis-related Mad Ayoade, Rosemarie DeWitt Libs. LIONEL ASBO: STATE OF ENGLAND Martin Amis and Will Forte. Directing is Akiva Rating: MA Schaffer, one-third of the Jonathan Cape (Random House) rrp $32.95 Lonely Island trio (Schaffer, UBURBAN paranoia Andy Samberg and Jorma NGLISH thug Lionel Asbo can be as funny as it Taccone make a quick Eis challenged in the Scan be dangerous. cameo) and a Saturday personal pronoun But in The Watch, which Night Live writer famous for department. ’’You got to was renamed from the popular digital shorts. listen to you Uncle Li,’’ he Neighbourhood Watch to This is his second feature tells his orphaned nephew distance itself from the after 2007’s Hot Rod, and Des Pepperdine. ‘‘You carry a Trayvon Martin killing in senior management position (Jonah Hill); and Jamarcus, while he clearly has the blade? Well you should. For at Costco. a divorced, afroed Brit (the Florida, the threat to an ability to pull funny out of you own security’’. A fixture in ordered Ohio town isn’t wry, poised Richard Ayoade, This is a particularly his cast, he doesn’t here the local courts, Lionel anything with contemporary earnest Ben Stiller: ‘‘I don’t who directed the promising show any visual and changed his surname by resonance. It’s just aliens. have any black friends yet, Submarine and nearly steals narrative distinction that deed poll from Pepperdine to That’s the disappointing but I am on the market,’’ he the movie). separates him from the Asbo (short for Anti-Social Behaviour Order) on his basis of The Watch, which says. The crew is slow to growing pack of comedy unfolds not in a way that But Evan’s enthusiasm is develop, harassed by directors. 18th birthday. He is a debt collector, aided by two psycho dogs he riles up by pouring Tabasco sauce on might have anything funny shattered when a friend and dismissive cops (a funny His most interesting choice or enlightening to say about Costco security guard Will Forte) and egg-throwing is to make the aliens far their steak. Des is a huge disappointment to his picket-fence fearfulness, but (Joseph A Nunez) is high-schoolers. But they more fearsome and detailed Uncle Li. He works hard at school and reads ’’real’’ simply with conventional mysteriously mauled make some headway and than a comedy would newspapers. In a karmic aberration, Lionel wins summer movie bombast. overnight. eventually crack open the normally accommodate. £140 million in the lottery (on a ticket filled out by case: aliens are invading Evan Troutwig (Ben When Evan makes The mission of the Des as Lionel ‘‘finks’’ the lottery is for mugs). He Glenville. Stiller) is as devoted to neighbourhood safety his Neighbourhood Watch gang starts a lifestyle of trashing five-star hotel Glenville, Ohio, as Max new cause, his rally for Action and comedy are stresses their budding penthouses, buying £200 socks, seeing to (and Fischer was to Rushmore support draws derision and nearly always strange friendships, pulling them occasionally giving a ‘‘fump’’) to a line-up of gold Academy. Though he and only three volunteers. bedfellows, and The Watch is apart before pushing them diggers until he finds the gold digger of his dreams, his wife (an underused They’re a motley lot: Bob, a no exception. back together. ‘‘Threnody’’. Meanwhile, Des is terrified of Lionel’s Rosemarie DeWitt) are father of a teenager looking Introducing Or was that the plot of unpredictable wrath over an unforgivable act and it’s trying to have a kid, he puts for a guy’s night out (Vince extraterrestrials puts the 21 Jump Street? Maybe it this tension that ratchets up to a nail-biting most of his energy into the Vaughn); Franklin, a police story on a familiar was Get Him to the Greek? conclusion. It’s twisted but hilarious. town through various department reject with a trajectory of chases and community groups and his buzz cut and switchblade explosions filled with mock- JAKE COYLE JUDY HERBERT 30 - The Advocate, Saturday, September 15, 2012 www.theadvocate.com.au.

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