I found something pretty appalling this week.

Do you remember the Cronulla riots? They were an embarrassment to this country and more specifically to Sydney. In general, Australia has a pretty good record for welcoming migrants from all over the world, who usually come here either for the opportunities or to escape oppression.

In most cases, people have found this country to be a haven, but unfortunately the swing towards Right-Wing thinking in world politics, led largely by the US, has created a nationalistic paranoia in Western countries. All the hype around terrorism, the Middle East and Islam has given uneducated nationalist yobbos an outlet for the dissatisfaction they feel with their own lives. “Lets blame the Arabs”.

Cronulla was just the result of years of tensions. Both “sides” have plenty to answer for, but it wouldn’t have happened without all the hype. This week I read that a board game has been released called Cronulla Monopoly where players play to “win back Australia”.

It was also this week that I read about a drunken football team who bashed a Jewish guy in Caulfield after yelling racial abuse at him and his kids out of the window of their bus.

Where is this all heading? It’s a serious question. I don’t understand what’s happening.

(more…)

Quite simply - if you want to see the most creative movie of the last decade, you have to see “SCIENCE OF SLEEP“.

It’s Michel Gondry’s (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) newest film about a young man who mixes up his dreams with reality (basically a hommage to his own work and life thus far). It’s full of crazy ideas, a car chase with cardboard cars, toy horses made out of material which come to life, cities made of cardboard, time machines made of plastic etc, etc, etc.

It is wild! It makes everything else you have seen, which claims to be creative, look like a piece of work made from someone out of the movie “1984″! Seriously, it is outrageous! It is funny, actually hilarious, loveable and so very daring!

Go see it! Tell everyone! Enjoy!!!!!

Since it has been a topic of late at Beezhouse, I thought it would be appropriate to highlight the difference in advertising for the two competing coffee brands - illy and Starbucks!

Which do you prefer?

or

Don’t these two ads say so much about their cultures and therefore brands?