ENTERTAINMENT
GOING IN STYLE BY JOHN CAMPBELL
POP GOES THE EASEL
BY RO N B AY I S G E T T I N G R E A DY TO P O P ! P R E G N A N T W I T H A RT I ST I C P RO M I S E . Popped is the exciting new arts project and laneway activation event coming to ‘Surf Alley’ on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 May. Creative director and co-founder Abbie Gibson has come from a background in arts management. She moved to Byron four years ago and fell in love with the place. ‘I moved here and was blown away by the incredible people here who are willing to put everything on the line to follow their passion,’ she said. ‘You are so well supported here by people who want you to have your dreams come true. It’s something I wanted to be around. To find a sense of womanhood and community. And it’s a great place to bring up children.’ It’s Abbie’s passion for the arts and her new town that has her so invigorated. ‘There is a sense of pride in the work people do here. We have great businesses here that have a strong sense of local identity. They make it here and they stay here. I want Pop! to have that. I know that for the community what we are doing is “change” but I am hoping they lap it up.’ The two-day event will be bringing art and creativity to the Byron business district. ‘Popped as an event here is the first of its kind,’ says Abbie. ‘The council put out some seed funding for placemaking some time ago to liven up the streets of Byron and we were one of the seven successful applicants. Right now we are working with Surf Alley and into the carpark. We thought we would aim small before we venture onto our next project.’ Abbie worked alongside the Byron Shire Council’s masterplan, engaging local businesses and interested community groups. ‘Those walls were painted about seven years ago because the laneways were predominately used to throw up in. They were known to the locals as spew alley. A group of people came up with the idea of listing a number of fantastic surfers. We think it’s important to keep that in some way, to honour those people, but we will be changing the artwork. It won’t resemble surfing so much.’ Gibson has commissioned six street artists to create the artwork, which will commence on 12 May. The project is focused on street beautification and is also expected to reduce tagging by other graffiti artists. ‘There is a respect thing in graffiti art culture: when there are bigger pieces of artwork you don’t tag them because it’s off limits,’ says Gibson.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL 2 If it weren’t for the ear-splitting excesses of the climactic scenes, this reviewer would have to eat humble pie and concede that the latest from the endless production line of Marvel super-hero fantasies is pretty good. I wouldn’t venture any further than that, but I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to stay the course instead of leaving early. For starters, it’s laced with casually delivered gags that make the otherwise absurd characters seem easier to identify with.
of monotonous blockbusters – it is stridently anti-God. There are a number of secondary stories at play, dealing with revenge, power, unspoken love and other human frailties – all acted out as they were by the ancient deities on Mount Olympus – but it is the conflict with omnipotent Ego that is at the core of the matter. Ego is the father of half-god/halfhuman Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), and he needs him to help in his grand plan to take over the universe. Peter, wanting to know who killed his mother, is taken in by Ego’s promises, but his close friends are not. The effects are stunning, the narrative straightforward and Peter’s fellow guardians personable – the relationship between the giant Drax (Dave Bautista) and petite Mantis (Pom Klementieff ) is especially cute. The Big Fight at the end is far too long, which is a given in this type of flick, but it’s worth a look.
Michael Caine is eighty-four years old, and he looks and acts every day of it in an underwhelming comedy that is as stale as last week’s bread. To think that he was the toast of swingin’ sixties London and the heroic, golden-haired lieutenant at the battle of Rorkes Drift – not that Morgan Freeman comes off looking much better. Out of the three old codgers who combine to rob a bank, only Alan Arkin appears to be more than a heartbeat from death’s door, and the kindest thing we can say about Ann-Margret is that maybe next time she should consult Cher’s cosmetic surgeon. Zach Braff ’s sporadic career as director includes the charming Garden State (2004), so it was a surprise to see how clunky his new offering is – the scene in which the gang pinch stuff from a supermarket is embarrassingly bad. From the minute that Joe (Caine) walks lead-footed and expressionless into his bank to be told that he is overdrawn, the movie is wrapped in an octogenarian fugue. Joe, who has miraculously not lost his Cockney accent, despite working at a steelworks for thirty years with Willie (Freeman), has also seen his and his mates’ superannuation moved offshore, so the only reasonable option for them is to pull a heist and take back from the oppressors of the working man what is rightfully theirs. But first they need to learn the ropes and tool up. There is so much potential wasted by a dreary script and a cast happy to hit the bundy every morning for the million or so bucks they will have been paid to go through the motions. I found myself staring at those weird black freckle-things that are scattered around Freeman’s eyes and hoping for Matt Dillon, an actor with a subtly honed comic skill, to be more involved as Detective Hamer. Braff tries to jazz it up with split screen, collage and a few other tricks of the trade, but a potential gem turns out to be a Joe Cocker.
Then there is the soundtrack, which repeatedly hits a surreal note when you least expect it – Glen Campbell, Sam Cooke, Jay and the Americans add rich irony and tunefulness, but when the crew arrive at the planet of Ego (Kurt Russell) accompanied by George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, I laughed out loud. Have I been wrong about Marvel all this time? Are the movies always this tongue-in-cheek? No, I’m not a convert yet, and the hideous Logan is too fresh in the mind to think that I will be any time soon, but there is one other feature that lifts this above the mire
‘The idea of the work is to create a feeling. These are dead spaces that have been sitting there unused. The artwork will make them feel safer and will encourage more people to walk through.’ Over two days Popped will be printing art installations, a ‘fresh air’ gallery where people paint outdoors on the street with work for sale directly to the public from the artist. ‘At night you can enjoy DJs, food by Three Blue Ducks, and a Bar by Stone & Wood and Brookies Gin,’ says Gibson. On Saturday there will also be a series of talks called Live Ideas with guest speakers talking on different subjects from place-making to being bold in creativity, the history of Surf Alley and more. In the style of TED talks, but on the street. This is an all-weather event. $10 entry For more information go to poppedcreative.com.
North Coast news daily: www.echonetdaily.net.au
The Byron Shire Echo May 3, 2017 43