Red Space Rocket

Macbeth (2006) @ EzyDVD

The Melbourne underworld, present time.

Macbeth, a loyal henchman to his crime boss, Duncan, is told by teenage witches that he will one day assume great power. Driven by their prophecy, he plots with his wife to kill Duncan and takes the leadership of the gang himself. Maintaining his power will require ever worsening acts of violence, finally driving his surviving enemies to unite and destroy him.

I recently watched the film version of Macbeth made recently in Melbourne hoping for some fresh take or insight into the play. I am sure there are people who really like this version but I am not personally able to recommend it. I understand that they were probably trying to combine the best of literature and high action but I found it utterly tedious for most of the time.

So if you want to watch something recent and relevant I would still go with the BBC Shakespeare Retold version of Macbeth.

This might be useful for when we make short films.

1.78 Storyboard Template.pdf

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION: WHAT DO WE DO WHEN THE OIL RUNS OUT?

Join host Jeff McMullen and a panel of experts in a robust discussion about the bold solutions to the most challenging issues facing Australia – tonight “What Do We Do When The Oil Runs Out”?

Thursday 26 July 2007 9.25pm
ABC
Duration: 55 mins

Naturally I played a little SingStar over the holidays and you can hardly play that without giving some fleeting thought to a-ha’s Take on Me.

The single reached number-one in 36 countries and is one of the world’s best-selling singles of all time with 8-9 million copies sold, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. It also hit number two in the UK and number one in a-ha’s native Norway. The video was nominated for Best Video at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 5, 1986.

In 2006 the song was ranked at number 24 on VH1′s “Greatest Songs of the 1980s”.

Noun – the setting of a boundary or limit.

eg. Indiana and Cosmo were having a demarcation dispute about the couch.

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Google Maps Is Changing the Way We See the World

More than two centuries later, within the decidedly safer confines of Building 45 on Google’s Mountain View, California, campus, John Hanke clicks the 3-foot image of Earth projected on his office wall and spins it around to India. Hanke, the director of Google Earth and Google Maps, zooms in for a closer look at Bangalore. At first, the city appeared in Google Earth as little more than a hi-res satellite photo. “Bangalore wasn’t mapped on Google’s products,” he says, “and it really wasn’t very well mapped, period.”

The task we are working on in Geography is to draw a map of the area immediately around and including your home. For year 9s this is one house each way and for year 10s it is three houses each way.

You don’t need to show what is inside houses but show as much of the outside world as you can. You will have more time in class to work on this. This task should be finished by the end of this week.

Here is the information which goes into most obituaries. I have also put it in a likely order.

Full Name.
Age at death (in years)
Time and date of death.
Manner of death. Please be use conventions such as tragically, suddenly, following a battle with cancer, peacefully at home, peacefully in her sleep.
Date and place of birthday.
Information about parents and other family.
Information about education and early experiences.
Information about achievements which may be work, travel, sporting or many other things in the course of a lifetime.
Information about personality or other people’s impressions.

Remember that obituaries are:

• Factual
• Respectful
• Written in the past tense.

For this task you are to write between 32 and 64 lines about another member of the class. It is up to them to decide how their remaining years were spent and not up to you to decide that they died at age 23 under a mountain of unsold Madonna records.

While the coldest continent has no permanent population there are quite a few people living there at any one time.

Antarctica has no permanent residents, but a number of governments maintain permanent research stations throughout the continent. The number of people conducting and supporting scientific research and other work on the continent and its nearby islands varies from approximately 4000 in summer to about 1000 in winter. Many of the stations are staffed year-round.

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I have no first hand experience of spontaneous human combustion and part of thinks it sounds utterly incredible. All the same if you want to know some more here is a link.

According to believers, the phenomenon known as spontaneous human combustion may result in simple burns and blisters to the skin, smoking, or a complete incineration of the body. The latter is the form most often ‘recognized’ as SHC. There are many characteristics that together distinguish alleged SHC from other forms of fire.

Spontaneous human combustion – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Noun – Relief or aid.

eg. Indiana finally provided my succour when she finally stopped barking and let me sleep.

Pronounced just like “sucker”.

Used very well in an episode of The Vicar of Dibley.

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For no reason at all I got to thinking about the Bay City Rollers which is odd since I don’t think I can name one of their songs.

Anyhow it turns out they got their name throwing darts at a map of America.

The dart landed on the map in the state of Arkansas, but since “Arkansas Rollers” did not sound quite right, and might also lead to problems with pronunciation, they tried again and this time the dart landed near the community of Bay City, Michigan.

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Adjective – Pleasing to hear or taste.

Eg. I drowned out Indiana’s barking with the dulcet tones of Gillian Welch.

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Someone asked me where the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? gets its name. This is what I tried to explain but they do a much better job of it.

The title of the film is a reference to a plot element in a satirical 1941 film, directed by Preston Sturges, called Sullivan’s Travels, where the protagonist (a director) wants to direct a film on the Great Depression called O Brother, Where Art Thou? that will be “…a commentary on modern conditions, stark realism, the problems that confront the average man… with a little sex in it.” Lacking any real experience as an average man, the director sets out on a journey to experience the human suffering of the average man but is constantly returned to his rich Hollywood environment. The director’s experience and intent in Sullivan’s Travels are the opposite of the disadvantaged heroes in O Brother, Where Art Thou? who wish to return home and are constantly being diverted from it.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I thought this DVD looked interesting and might be good for when we look at volcanoes as a topic.

National Geographic – Volcano: Nature’s Inferno @ EzyDVD

Travel around the world for a firsthand look at volcanoes – perhaps the most dazzling but destructive natural force on earth. Massive volcanic eruption can turn day into night, releasing the power of an atomic blast, spewing toxic avalanches of lava, gas, and ash. National Geographic Video transports you to some of the world’s most notorious volcanoes, including Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines and Japan’s Mount Unzen. Join volcanologists in their dangerous quest to forecast eruptions and save lives and experience the explosive excitement and human drama surrounding volcanoes.