fitzroyalty

Italian film gives me a great deal of pleasure. I have been looking forward to the Italian Film Festival this year, as the program seems particularly strong. Also, now that the Palace group has bought and renovated the Westgarth cinema on High St in Northcote, the festival is much closer to me than the Como and Balwyn cinemas.

On Sunday night I saw Marcello: Una Vita Dolce – a documentary about the actor Marcello Mastroianni. It was an extremely lightweight doco, and brushed over many aspects of his life, such as never mentioning his wife’s name, or that his younger daughter Chiara’s mother was his lover, Catherine Deneuve, who was described only as a co-star in several of his films. Still, it was rather enjoyable.

Palace have done a fantastic job with the Westgarth, and there was a modest buzz in the foyer prior to the screening. Once again, I was the only obvious skippie in the audience. The film was only half full, and was in one of the smaller upstairs cinemas, so I suspect that expanding the festival to the Westgarth is something of an experiment for Palace. Unfortunately they have also selected to adopt allocated seating for the festival.

Sunday was open day at the Royal exhibition building in Carlton. I’ve lived in Melbourne for almost four years and this was the first time I have seen inside.

Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday night I went to a friend’s 30th birthday party. It was a really fun night and the theme was something ‘deadly’. I decided, in my capacity as one of Australia’s most underground conceptual artists (so underground no one has ever heard of me) to go as a concept and not use costume to illustrate my theme. Consequently, I went as the tree that killed Peter Brock. It was judged the most tasteless idea of the night, although many people admitted to considering coming as a stingray, either the stingray that killed Steve Irwin or a generic one.

The host Marie was a blue-ringed octopus and her partner Greg was a disaffected American high school student (Columbine style, about to go postal). Comedian Lawrence Leung wore a Liberal party tshirt, Antony was a ‘red mitsubishi’ ecstasy pill, Rachel was a fork in a toaster, Dan was Tony Mokbel, complete with bling, and Jo was a snake. The theme generated a lot of fun conversation and I had a great time!

I am very interested in graphic design, including that for product packaging and in advertising. I fly occasionally to Sydney for work on Qantas, and have noticed how their snack packaging has evolved. The snacks change quite regularly, and the packaging is very consistent in its style and branding. The message is something like ’simplicity is tasteful and expensive’. Below is an example.