Formal Introductions, Spencer, Found Books, and Matilda Brown

1. Started watching an episode of Home and Away.

2. Saw Zac (Charlie Clausen) and Ash (George Mason) formally introduce themselves to each other.

That surprised me a bit.

They've both been on the show at least for the first two months of this season, and I know it's been even longer than that. They weren't new to the town when the season began.  

Summer Bay is a very small town, and they both know the same people.  

I don't think it's impossible for two people to live in the same town, hang out in the same places, know some of the same people; but still not have met. 

I guess it just caught me off guard.  

3. Looked at IMDb.  

Charlie Clausen has been on the show since May 2012

George Mason is newer. His first episode was in October 2014. 

4. Thought that Spencer (Andrew J. Morley) was rude.

Andy (Tai Hara) is getting assessed as a fitness instructor. Spencer is standing in as his trainee. 

In front of the assessor (Mark Slater), Spencer corrects Andy when he forgets information and upstages him. He makes Andy look bad.  

I don't think Spencer is purposely trying to make a fool out of Andy. I think he's just so eager to show off. He's not mindful of how his actions might effect others.

I'm not a big fan of Spencer.

He's the one who organized a cancer run in honor of Maddie right after she said she's tired of people talking about her cancer so much. He's also the one who publicly humiliated Maddie about being dumped by Oscar.

As for the cancer run, Maddie didn't get angry at Spencer for that. She wasn't too keen on attending the event at first, but in the end, it did her good.  Still, I think it was insensitive of Spencer to put his energy into the cancer run just after hearing Maddie say she was tired of people focusing too much on that aspect of her life.

5. Started watching an episode of Tangle.  

6. Realized, when watching the recap, that Dan Wylie WAS in the episode yesterday—but only his voice.

He left a phone message.

I'm betting in the episode, I watch today, he'll show his face as well.

7.  Looked up the person who does the musical score for Tangle

I'm guessing that would include the theme song in the beginning. Or maybe not?  I'm not sure.

But, anyway. The music person is a woman named Bryony Marks.  

She also does/did the music for Please Like Me, Anzac Girls, Angry Boys, Cloudstreet, Summer Heights High, and other things.  

8. Saw that Bryony Marks music is available on Spotify; though there's no Tangle stuff.  

9. Thought Kat Stewart's character in this show is overly similar to her character in Offspring.

In both shows, she plays the annoying sister who can tell if someone's had sex just by looking at them.  

It's definitely a case of type-casting. Though I think some of Stewart's other characters might be different from that.  

10. Saw that Stewart was in a recent comedy movie called Sucker.  Timothy Spall, from Harry Potter, is one of the stars.  

11. Watched the trailer. It's about a Chinese-Australian man.  

Lawrence Leunig co-wrote the film, and the main character's name is Lawrence. It might be semi-autobiographical.  Or it could be like The Mindy Project.  On that, the main character has the same name as the creator, and main star, of the show. But the real Mindy is an actress/writer, and the pretend Mindy is a ob/gyn.  

12. Looked up a girl who looked familar to me in the trailer.

It's Lily Sullivan, and I saw her in Camp, Mental, and an episode of Rake.


What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there 
was life after death, and 
we could easily talk to our 
dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts 




13. Saw a plastic bag in the garage.

I decided to peek inside, and found three Australian books.

One of them was Jaclyn Moriarty's The Spell Book of Listen Taylor.

I searched for that a few months ago, because I wanted to reread it.  

I guess I can do that now!

It will be a slow read, because I'm already reading six other books. 

14. Saw Dan Wylie on Tangle.

His character is dating Kat Stewart.

15. Tried to remember if Wylie and Stewart have acted together in anything before.  

16. Started comparing their filmographies.

It's kind of complicated.  I mean it's not easy for me to cross-reference. I'm not talented at that kind of thing.

17. Saw that Wylie and Stewart were both in the first season of Underbelly.  I think Stewart was one of the stars in that season. Wylie appeared in only two episodes, but then he had a larger role in another season.

18. Saw that they both appeared on the TV show It's a Date but on different episodes.

19. Recognized an actor on Tangle

I looked on the episode cast list, and saw that it's Ben Schumann.

I saw him in Slide.  

Dan Wylie appeared in an episode of Slide.  

20. Went to the Tropfest website.

Tonight I'm going to watch a 2010 finalist film called "How God Works".

The woman in the little icon photo looks familiar to me. 

I'll see if I end up knowing her from something else.  

21. Started watching the film. 

22. Continued to think the woman in the film looks familiar.

23. Saw that the movie is about a rude woman—kind of heartless.  She reminds me of Tracy on Coronation Street.  

Tracy has her occasional sympathetic moments.. I don't think this will be the case for the woman in this film. It's probably hard to fit sympathetic moments, for a bitch, in a short film.

24. Wondered if the two women in the film are played by the same actress.

They look alike...sort of. And they both look familar to me.

I might be imagining things.  

 25. Finished watching the film.

I liked the beginning.

I didn't like the ending.

26. Saw that the two women WERE played by the same actress.

Her name is Matilda Brown.  

27. Learned from Lord Wiki that Matilda Brown is the daughter of Bryan Brown.

Wow!

28. Saw that Matilda Brown also wrote and directed "How God Works".  

29. Saw that Brown was in two episodes of season one of Offspring.

Maybe that's why I recognize her.  

30. Saw that Matilda Brown is in an upcoming movie called The Death and Life of Otto Bloom.  

It's about a guy who experiences life in reverse.

Is it going to be similar to the Benjamin Button movie? Will Otto Bloom age backwards?  Or does he stay the same age throughout the movie?

31. Saw that Xavier Samuel is playing Otto Bloom.

I don't see a young or old Otto Bloom in the credits, so I'm guessing Bloom stays the same age through out the movie.

32. Went to Matilda Brown's Vimeo page. 

She has a lot of videos, AND she very recently updated the page. Usually, when I go to Vimeo pages, the youngest videos are about a year old.

33. Started watching Brown's comedy show reel.

She has huge eyes. She's like a computer animation character. 

34. Thought that Brown has a mild resemblance to Alyssa Milano.

35. Liked the monologue, in the show reel, about love.

It's quite profound. The theory behind it is that everything centers on love and heartbreak.

It all comes down to that. Or most of it does.

I can buy into that theory.

36. Started to watch the other show reel that Brown recently uploaded.

I guess it's the non-comedy one.  

37. Saw some comedy.

Maybe the comedy show-reel was just extra stuff that Brown forgot to put in this other showreel.

I say this, because this show reel is over seven minutes, and the other one was two minutes. It seems almost like Brown forgot to put stuff in her show reel, so she made a sequel.  

38. Thought more about the love thing.

Maybe the world is divided up into people who center on love and people who center on sex.

The love people are the ones who usually watch regular TV shows and movies.

The sex people are the ones who prefer to watch porn.   

39. Saw that I'm wrong about the show reels.

The long one includes some of the same scenes as the comedy one.

Now I'm thinking the shorter show reel is probably for people who have a shorter attention span and are looking only for comedy stuff.

40. Realized that, in some of the scenes, Brown has an American accent.

I'm sometimes really slow about noticing that kind of thing. I think it's gotten worse lately.

A week or so ago, I was watching Coronation Street and pointed out this guest-star actress to Tim. I thought her acting seemed a bit off. She reminded me of when non-actor celebrities make guest appearances on TV shows.

Anyway, Tim pointed out immediately that the woman had an American accent. I didn't even notice.

What's up with that??!!

41. Saw a drama scene in the showreel...finally.

It's with Brown's father. He's dead, but still there. Matilda Brown is acting dramatically upset about that.

Well, I mean she's upset that he's dead. She's not upset that he's still there.

I don't know why he's still there.

Maybe she's imagining him? Or is he like a ghost-visitation thing. I've seen that a few times on Australian shows—Packed to the Rafters, Offspring, McLeod's daughters, and maybe others I've forgotten about.  

It makes me wonder if Australians have some kind of genetic disposition for seeing dead people.  

42. Figured it might happen on American shows but just not the ones I watch.

43. Saw that Matilda Brown uploads a show reel every year.

That's pretty cool.

Also, she has the dead father series  (Lessons from the Grave) on Vimeo.

I'm kind of tired of watching stuff now, but I'll bookmark it for another day. 

Maybe I'll watch some of it tomorrow.  

44. Bookmarked the short film "Cockatoo" as well.  I saw some scenes in the show reel, and I thought it was quite funny.

45. Had a meal break and realized I have refreshed my video-watching energy.

I'm going to watch an episode of  Lessons from the Grave episodes.

46. Saw that the dad dies of a heart attack...just after learning he has won the lottery.

47. Thought an actor in the show looks familiar.

48. Surprised by the show.

Bryan Brown's character dies.

Then, in the next scene, he's already a ghost communicating with his daughter.

They don't show the initial conversation between the living and dead.

I'm wondering if she was surprised when he first started talking to her.

Well, I imagine she would be. Stupid question, probably.

I guess what I'm really wondering is if she thinks it's really her dad. Or does she think it's a figment of her imagination?  

49.  Felt unsure of whether I like the show or not.

I'll try some more episodes later.

50. Thought about how I also need to watch the rest of The Justice Lease. I really like that show. I don't know why I haven't gotten around to watching more of it.  

51. Bookmarked The Justice Lease so I remember to watch the rest of it.

I have only two more episodes.