“China today combines the worst of all existing government systems: the corruption of oligarchy, the rampant ecological destruction of early capitalism and the oppression of free speech that was the hallmark of eastern socialism.”

The best girlfriend ever, thinking loud.

Today the best girlfriend ever and myself went to see the long expected Perfect Creature, a movie that was filmed in Oamaru, Dunedin and Auckland back in 2004 and after post production waited for a general release until this week. While I tried to keep up to date with the movie’s problems, I never quite understood why it took so long for the movie to be picked up by a distributor. Apparently directly to DVD in the U.S., this is now out in Europe and Australasia.

Being interested in the work of director Glen Standring and curious about the scenes filmed in the victorian quarter in Oamaru, I really had no choice but to see it. We saw the flick on a nice big screen in Dunedin’s Hoyt’s cinema on a saturday morning. Not the perfect time to see a movie, but a mercifully quiet cinema without annoying teens, mobile phones going off and people crunching chips behind me.

The movie looks stunning: with a comparatively tiny budget, Standring made good use of computer generated imagery but it blended in beautifully in with the ‘real life’ shots. Colourwise, the movie is a masterpiece: in tune with the bleak and unwelcoming world it portrays, the colours feel sucked out, and greys and earth tones dominate. A mainly Kiwi cast apart from leads Dougray Scott and Saffron Burrows does a good job and did I mention the visuals? The art directors and production designers Ivey, Basset and Bavin deserve an Oscar for creating a coherent and plausible steampunk world, that combines technology from the fifties with the interior design of the twenties and a streetlook of the victorian age. Very, very impressive.

So, it looks great, but is it actually a good movie?

The best girlfriend, who normally doesn’t like watch Horror/Fantasy/SciFi at all and who only tagged along to see Oamaru on the big screen, was certainly impressed. I was completely blown away by the richness of Standring’s alternative universe and the story kept me at the edge of my seat until the very end. Burrows and Scott can be proud of their achievements and Standring should become a giant of his genre.

Go and watch it.

After six years, incumbent Alan McLay has lost his gold chain and has to hand it over to the new guy. A proto-conservative with a good heart and good mediation skills is now lost to the district.

It will be interesting how the new guy handles a council with new faces but the same old challenges:

• stagnating population
• growing visitor numbers and their effects on the district’s infrastructure
• compared to the rest of the country a significantly higher percentage of over 65-year-olds who tend to find local rates ill affordable
• dealing with environmental concerns in a district that is rapidly filling up with dairy cows
• a stroppy core of victorian rabble rousers who with charm and aplomb stir up the establishment
• and, finally, a group of European residents who observe the whole thing, shaking their heads.

I, for one, welcome my new mayoral overlord from Palmerston, Alex Familton.

He’s got his work cut out for him.

Hayden Meikle, the Otago Daily Times’ rugby correspondent, will have to eat some serious humble pie: just three days ago he was scathing about the french rugby team and their chances to play the demi-god like revered All Blacks. In an opinion piece dripping with confidence he shared his belief that the quarter final joust against France was just another walk-over. I don’t know whether Kiwiana’s finest shared that belief, but everyone certainly must now be back on the bleary grounds of reality. After the 20:18 loss against a fiercely defending french team the dreams of this nation have been squandered and it just again proves that the All Blacks play excellent rugby outside the world cup, but when the chips were down and the intensity of the tournament atmosphere combined with the hopes of four million rugby nuts are on their shoulders, this bunch of actually rather pleasant men fumbled.

The consequences for this tiny nation somewhere in the South Pacific will be stark: tomorrow everybody will wake up with a significant hangover, the government will ask itsself how much bad luck they will be able to take 12 months before the elections, the All Black sponsors will get out the red marker pen and write off their losses and fifteen men will have to face the shame of being the first team kicked out of the Rugby World Cup in the quarter finals.

On the other hand, employers will get their staff back refreshed after a good night sleep due to an acute reduction of overnight rugby watching, the front pages of the nation’s newspapers will be free again for international news and coffee break chats can finally focus again on lambing.

There’s always the soccer world cup in 2010: maybe the Kiwis can qualify for that for a change.

And if it all goes wrong, we always have softball, rowing and netball. Sports we can all identify with.