I am staying at my son's house.

He has his own cinema.

We've just watched the new Star Trek movie in it.

It rocks.

I'm going to have to sell my house and buy another one now, so I can have a cinema at home, too...

In 1975, amid deafening international silence, Indonesia invaded East Timor when the Portuguese withdrew from their former colony. A team of Australian journalists rushed to cover the invasion, in the hopes of drumming up some international outrage — Channel Seven's Greg Shackleton (Damon Gameau), Gary Cunningham (Gyton Grantley) and Tony Stewart (Mark Leonard Winter), along with Channel Nine’s Brian Peters (Thomas Wright) and Malcolm Rennie (Nathan Phillips). In October 1975, they disappeared in the town of Balibo and where never seen again.

In November 1975, four weeks after the five Australian journalists were reported missing,  veteran foreign correspondent Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia) was approached by a young Timorese man — José Ramos-Horta (Oscar Isaac)  — trying to recruit him to run the East Timor News Agency. Roger reluctantly agrees when Horta offers to help him discover the fate of the missing journos.  Once in East Timor, he discovers the journalists had gone to Balibo determined to film the Indonesian invasion and that all five men had been executed by the invading Indonesian troops,  their bodies (and their film of the invasion) burnt beyond recognition.

For many Australians, the incident in Balibo in November 1975, will remain forever a scar on our relations with both Indonesia and East Timor. That five young men lost their lives covering something that went almost unnoticed internationally and in Australia until later events forced their fate to light, continues to aggravate many who feel the massacre was covered up for the sake of not offending the Indonesians. That is clearly not the intention of this film. The Indonesians do not come out of this treatment well at all. 

The film centres around Roger East’s search for some clue about the fate of the journalists, but the tension of the search is watered down by the confusing editing which cuts back and forth between the events of four weeks earlier with Roger’s search, in scenes often featuring the same people wearing the same clothes. Even more confusing is the fact that the film is book-ended by the testimony of an Timorese woman, Juliana, who merely met Roger East in passing as a small child, giving the impression that it’s her story, when in fact she had little or nothing to do with any of it.

The film feels authentic, as well it should, given it was shot in East Timor for the most part, but the choppy editing leaves a lot to be desired. I think the film would have been better served by having us follow the journalists first and then the man who sets out to look for them, rather than having the two happen simultaneously.  I suppose, when you have a star of the calibre of La Paglia, you need to make the film about his character, which is a pity, because although he does an excellent job as the jaded Roger East, he is the catalyst for telling the story, not really the focus of it.

This is not a happy film. It tells of a terrible period in history and reflects well on very few living people, the exception being incumbent East Timorese President, José Ramos-Horta, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to free his homeland from Indonesian occupation. That nobody has ever been brought to justice for the death of these five young men only serves to make the audience angry, which perhaps, if justice is ever to be sought for the killers of the Balibo Five, could well have been the Director, Robert Connelly’s, intention.

We have another cat. This one is named Pirate, named because she has a black patch over one eye.

Now, Pirate, who belongs to Firstborn, has something of a past. We got her from the RSPCA as a present for FB a few years ago, along with a voucher to have her desexed (this was back before Secondborn was a qualified Vet). So, FB takes Pirate to the clinic, they anaesthetize her, and open her up, and go... "Whoops, we've done this before..."

That's right, Pirate was already de-sexed  but they'd forgotten to tattoo her ear.

Needless to say, FB decided to take Pirate to the other vet clinic (where her sister works) when she was due for her shots. Except on the way into the clinic Dace dropped the cat cage, it sprung open and Pirate bolted, never to be seen again.

Or so we thought...

A year later, one of FB's friends rang and told her she'd seen Pirate hanging around the nurses quarters at the hospital. She'd called her over, picked her up, put her in a box and turned her back for two seconds and the little bugger escaped...

For the next 6 months, the entire hospital maintenance staff (where FB's father worked) set out to catch Pirate. Except by now she'd been adopted by the nurses living on campus who kept feeding her and letting her out of the trap the maintenance guys rigged to catch her. It ended up taking a decree from the hospital's General Manager and the involvement of the Health and Safety officer and the Union Rep to negotiate Pirate's return.

So... after 18 months on the lam, Pirate comes home, acting like nothing has happened.

Until she moved into my place...

First thing she did was tame Declan the Psycho Pussy. It's the most bizzare thing I have ever seen. All she did was look at him, which was obviously accompanied by a telepathic message along the lines of "Fuck with me and you die". Now, when Pirate comes into the room Declan sits quietly in the corner with not so much as a hiss or bite or look in her general direction. He just waits until she leaves before he does anything.

Unfortunately, last night, Pirate met Bruce.

It wasn't pretty. There was so much blood on the floor we were slipping in. It took three of us to break them apart.

The good news... Bruce, the mastiff will be fine. He should recover nicely from his injuries.

As for Pirate, I hear you wonder?

Well... after she was done, she jumped into the laundry sink, calmly licked Bruce's blood off her claws and then strolled upstairs to eat.

She hasn't got a mark on her.

This is one cat you don't wanna mess with... :)

Reprints from the UK always make me smile...