This week at Casey: 16 August 2013

Movie night at Casey is one of our favourite past times. It’s a great way to relax after a long day at the office, workshop, stores or kitchen. This year we have no shortage of movie fans. Our cinema booking board is always full and at times overflowing. Booking a week ahead is crucial for screening your favourite movie.

A wide variety of films have been screened in our beloved Odeon, this includes a number of French films. At first I found it strange and unorthodox, this of course compared to the more familiar Hollywood movies. I thoroughly enjoyed the films and found wanting more. The first film was the very strange “Holy Motors”. It’s was like jumping into the deep end of French cinema movement. Not knowing what to expect from French cinema, just a title implying sanctified automobiles, it came to my surprise when characters started singing as if in a musical, and clearly the movie isn’t a musical, then suddenly the mood changed with a deep dramatic death scene, changing to a character biting off a finger and in a different scene contained contemporary dance. This leaves you confused through the whole movie until a family of monkeys at the very end reveals all. The next movie was “La prophet”. I guess you can call it a gangster movie but at its core it is a coming of age film. Lastly, my favourite out of the three films “Rust and Bone”. How can I describe it? Beautiful! It’s about a single parent who gets into street MMA (mix martial arts) and a beautiful legless Orca trainer and their complicated relationship. As a result of the movie, our doctor Chad discovers that an Orca has a much larger repertoire in its diet then food the size of oranges.

From the good to the bad, I bring you “The Man with the Iron Fists” and “Spring Breakers”. I think that is all can be said about these two movies, except for “Spring Break forever!… Forever!… Forever!”

Quietly, one of the most watched genre here at Casey are romcoms (romantic comedies). I have never seen this many romcoms in the last 5 months, than I ever seen in the last 5 years. Secretly everybody loves a good romcom. And the top of that list is “Silver Linings Playbook”. One of the best films I’ve seen this year. Our watch list of romcoms can go on forever but the most recent films that we laughed and cried, sometimes simultaneously, include the frustratingly funny “I give it a year”, “10 years”, “Warm Bodies”, “Your Sister’s Sister”, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, “Safe Haven” and “Beautiful Creatures”. Yes! A few are borderline romcoms, but there are some witty lines, so to me, they are romcoms. In that case I should point out the movie adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s Book “The Host”. It was funny because it was just as bad as the book.

On to the big budget Hollywood films, which doesn’t necessarily make the movie any decent, like for example “A good day to Die Hard”. It must be all the romcoms that I’ve been watching but all the action and explosions didn’t impress me at all. Sequels like “Taken 2” felt like déjà vu and I have a feeling our screening of “GI Joe 2 Retaliation” Friday night would be the same. Of course we screened “Looper”, “ARGO”, “Zero dark thirty” and “The Hobbit”, in which, the Hobbit had to be in High Definition for young Ben. Personally I enjoyed “Cloud Atlas”, “Mud” “The Place beyond the Pines” and surprisingly a Tom Cruise movie “Oblivion”, which I expected to be in line with “The Man with the Iron Fists”.

As mentioned previously we are screening “GI Joe 2” Friday night, but other up coming films screening this weekend is “Coffee Town”, a romcom of course, and to change the pace the new remake of “Evil Dead”. I am looking forward to a number of up coming movies this month, particularly “Iron Man 3” and “The Great Gatsby”.

We all have different tastes in movies; some just make a mistake in a singular movie choice, which will haunt you for the rest of the season, i.e. “The Man with the Iron Fists”. Movies bring the station community together, it gives a perception that we are closer to home then what we really are.

Last Saturday the darts competition concluded with the final match between Benjamin M. and Michael W. It was a nail biting final as the station and world watched (maybe not the world).

As we pick up from the last two semi-final games where Andy B. lost to Benjamin M. Michael Williams defeated Mark Johnston in a closely contested match.

It was time now for the big game. The final match was best of three games that have been carried on for the last three weeks, so there was ample time for players to prepare both physically and mentally.

Michael W. toyed with young Swayze (Benjamin M.) and defeated him convincingly in the first match. Now the pressure was on. It was time for Benjamin to hit back and he did with the second game. With one game each it built up into a classic grand finale where the old and hairy met with a young inexperienced rival. It was down to the wire, fought till the end and Benjamin was leading, but the master (Michael W) showed his exuberant skills and got a Shanghai. Unfortunately young Swayze did not “cash in” on several shanghai opportunities.

Congratulations to our Champion, Mr Michael W. aka Spotty for the deserving victory and to Benjamin M. who is still one of the great Casey darts players. Thanks to all the players for participating, especially to Mark B., Ben H. and Andrew B. for the fabulous darts trophy.

This week at Casey things have been ramping up for a lot of outdoors work.

Tim N and Ben H went to Peterson Island to check out the sea ice and drop off the timber for the deck going up there next week. The melon will sit on the deck at a later stage.

Mick Williams is still sending jobs out the door… completed! If there is something needs servicing or fixing, he’s the first to it and then comes back for more! Andy B. makes way too much noise in the weld bay grinding all day, but also churns out the jobs… making a new box section for the land plane at the moment.

Play

Darts is played regularly once the work is done for the day, also the arcade games have been getting used, especially Choplifter and R-Type… but especially Choplifter!

Poem

This week’s poem:

The new Hobart, in the kitchen has been installed,
cut the bench to fit it in, its also quite tall,
The trays are bigger too, the size almost double,
More plates to put away, who’d think… more is less trouble?
But it cleans them quite well, and a good job it did,
But don't you dare walk away, once you have pulled down that lid,
In my eyes, there is no compromise that our plates and cutlery must be sanitised.

Thanks Hobart washer.