Movies and magazines

That just seemed like a good title, even though this post is only about one movie and one magazine.

I went with Cath to see The Sapphires last night. A long time ago (perhaps it was a year, I can’t remember) I got two tickets from my credit card awards. It seemed like a good deal, as you got two movie tickets for less points than a $25 shopping voucher, but since I don’t have anyone obvious to see movies with, and I go to the movies so seldom I don’t always know what’s screening, they have just sat around and been forgotten, till I picked them up recently and discovered they expired in August. So, I was then basically looking for a movie to see for the sake of it, and finding a last-minute friend to come along (and I love it that Cath does 'spontaneity').

The Sapphires was good. I wouldn’t say it was fantastic, but it was good. It’s based on the true story of four girls from a remote aboriginal mission, who respond to a newspaper advertisment to go to sing and entertain American troops in Vietnam. It would be a crazy premise if it weren’t true, and the characters live out experiences a million miles from my own comfort zone (it’s rated PG, which seems like a classification error to me, as the girls sing in nightclubs in Saigon in the height of the war etc). I thought there could have been a little more pathos injected into the story, and there were moments where it seemed a little discordant to aim for “comedy” from the given material. I also found the relationship that developed between two of the main characters somewhat unfathomable, though I did like the Chris O’Dowd’s role (who doesn’t like a guy with an Irish accent?) and perhaps my own understanding of soul music is faulty because the music wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, but it was enjoyable. I cried and laughed and learnt something, which is about the most one hopes for in a movie.

Over the weekend I treated myself and bought the latest issue of Frankie magazine. I very rarely buy a magazine, as they seem like an indulgence to me (which is not to say that they are for everyone, as I know we all spend our money differently), and in truth, the content of most 'women’s magazines' bores me witless. I’m not interested in celebrity gossip, though I am intrigued by what they name their babies, and is anyone genuinely interested in so many before and after shots of people who have gained or lost weight, or in booing or cheering women depending on how well they are doing in their string bikini? I tend to find myself looking at the health and exercise sections in those moments when I am faced with magazines, but I think if you tried to follow that often conflicting and always changing advice you’d quite literally render yourself mentally unwell. Also, if I started buying magazines I’d probably do that thing I do and keep them for years, and then I’d be buried alive under magazines (there are still old issues of ANH (Australian Natural History) under my bed!).

But, I have enjoyed flicking through Frankie. It’s full of alternative hipsterish creativeness, and interviews with such folks about how they live the life they live, and so far I have read little articles on a funeral in a Mauri community, dealing with grief, why the internet is full of baby animals, female explorers, a woman who made a documentary about the sexual slave trade in Moldova, lace-making in Antwerp (and I found out that some of what looks like very fine crochet in certain doilies is actually done on bobbins – it relieves me to know that there aren’t women out there somewhere with tiny hooks making those) and so on. It might become my bi-monthly effort to keep up with a small element of “culture”. Does anyone out there regularly read magazines, and if so which ones?