What:
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work

Where:
ACMI Cinemas, Thurs Sept 9 - Mon Sept 27.

Watch the trailer:
Here

Win:
Thanks to ACMI, we have 3 dbls to give away for the Sun Sept 12, 6pm screening. To enter, email win@threethousand.com.au with the subject 'This is how Marie Antoinette woulda lived. If she had had money'

Even though saying 'I love to laugh' comes from the land of like-no-duh, it's also from the land of obvs-because-its-true, riiiiight? Y'know I've sat at home alone and LOL-ed along to live stand-up DVDs and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

So, as much as I marvel at anyone who can actually make me laugh at their cute and impish antics, I also have a lot more love for what we like to call the dark side of humour, aka the gravel pit of funny.
 
This sort of funny is kinda like holding up a fat mirror to a car accident and showing the hilarity of the horrible. Joan Rivers does that. In her new doco Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, she is so balls-out-honest about everything people normally try to hide about themselves (pettiness, insecurity, blatant ambition, vanity) you can't help leaving the film feeling like you're BFFs (or her therapist).

Like the opposite of Jerry Seinfeld's Comedian, finally here's a doco about the funny people that doesn't just ‘make ‘em laugh'.

Description:
Going from page to picture is a tricky thing. I mean it worked for The Passion of the Christ but it really broke The Phantom of the Opera. Melbourne arts identities will discuss how John Marsden's classic Tomorrow When The War Began has gone from page to picture, after watching it. The panel includes Paul Verhoeven (Triple J), Lorelel Vashti (The Age), Richard Watts (Triple R), our very own Mel Campbell, and Hilary Harper (ABC 774). It is also an opportunity to not speak to the person next to you post film. They usually have nothing interesting to say. And by not being arts identities they are usually wrong. - MS 

Description:
Going from page to picture is a tricky thing. I mean it worked for The Passion of the Christ but it really broke The Phantom of the Opera. Melbourne arts identities will discuss how John Marsden's classic Tomorrow When The War Began has gone from page to picture, after watching it. The panel includes Paul Verhoeven (Triple J), Lorelel Vashti (The Age), Richard Watts (Triple R), our very own Mel Campbell, and Hilary Harper (ABC 774). It is also an opportunity to not speak to the person next to you post film. They usually have nothing interesting to say. And by not being arts identities they are usually wrong. - MS 

What:
Health Food Of A Nation!

Who:
Eamo Donnelly

Where:
The NEW Lamington Drive! 15-25 Keele St, Collingwood

When:
Opening TONIGHT! Thurs Sept 2, 6-9pm. Exhibition runs until Oct 2.

The new Lamington Drive gallery opens tonight. And, inside it, Eamo Donnelly's exhibition Health Food Of A Nation! If you want to know about the weird cube-shaped office, geodesic domes and batting cage that Jeremy has built himself out the back, bad luck, because Eamo was too polite to answer those questions. But he did tell us about the show - which is a trip pastwards to the Australian heyday when milk bars had fly zappers and the flim flam man of people's dreams was a Don of the Lane variety.

Hi Eamo! Tell the folks out there how to say your name.
Ay-mo. Like you've just spotted your mate Mo over the road you yell out "Ay! Mo!" It's a childhood nickname from my great Aunty Margaret who always forgot the 'N' on the end of my Christmas cards, my real name is Eamon, she called me Eamo, it stuck. Please no more 'Emo' or I might have to change my name to Macca.

How's the new Lamington Drive?
Delicious! So much better than Honey Joys down the road.

Tell us about your new show. Is it an Eamo retrospective?
Health Food of a Nation! is my first ever solo exhibition - a mixed bag of commercial and personal works from the last three years, hanging like Aunty Edna's unmentionables on a Marina Dryer (no, you heard me wrong, not Marina Prior, a Marina Dryer, it's a clothes line). USA editorial illustrations, commercial commissions and personal true-blue portraits as limited-edition fine-art prints, together with carefully and tastefully arranged Australiana and milkbar memorabilia, a wall of milkbar Polaroids, shop goodies like tees, wallets, clocks, decks and a pair of cheeky concrete stalks guarding the TV installation playing vintage Aussie gold telly.

You're converting the gallery into a milkbar?
In a gallery, exhibition type of way, please don't expect it to be an ACTUAL milkbar, there won't be a pie warmer, fly zapper or a bell on the door and we won't be selling Bubble 'O' Bills. But the milkbar does stock some delicious prints, use by date of October 2nd (this is when Health Food of a Nation! closes).

And what about these '70s and '80s VHS and Beta videos you've been collecting? What kind of stuff will you be screening?
Bit of Don (of the Lane variety) scatterings of Daggy Daryl, clips of Marty, black and white cigarette ads, random selection of colour '80s commercials, clips from a YTT Michael Jackson Special including tight rope walking and breakdancing (found in the Prahran oppe shoppe the week he died!) Hogues drinking milk, Edna before she became a Dame, Blind Date gold, Tony Barber, Elise Platt and Pete Smith from Sale and Oswald Q Ostrich.

What, no It's A Knockout?!
Like the Peters Ice Cream cone is the holy grail of Milkbar memorabilia, It's A Knockout is the holly grail of VHS finds. If anybody out there taped it in the '80s and might still have the videos gathering dust in their parents' shed, LET ME KNOW! Billy J Smith and Fiona Mac need to be preserved for future generations!

Is Marty Monster coming?
He'll be there, sort of, in some capacity, of the RGB kind.

Can we have a lift in your Holden?
No way! Because it's a FORD!!!! XB to be precise.

What:
Health Food Of A Nation!

Who:
Eamo Donnelly

Where:
The NEW Lamington Drive! 15-25 Keele St, Collingwood

When:
Opening TONIGHT! Thurs Sept 2, 6-9pm. Exhibition runs until Oct 2.

The new Lamington Drive gallery opens tonight. And, inside it, Eamo Donnelly's exhibition Health Food Of A Nation! If you want to know about the weird cube-shaped office, geodesic domes and batting cage that Jeremy has built himself out the back, bad luck, because Eamo was too polite to answer those questions. But he did tell us about the show - which is a trip pastwards to the Australian heyday when milk bars had fly zappers and the flim flam man of people's dreams was a Don of the Lane variety.

Hi Eamo! Tell the folks out there how to say your name.
Ay-mo. Like you've just spotted your mate Mo over the road you yell out "Ay! Mo!" It's a childhood nickname from my great Aunty Margaret who always forgot the 'N' on the end of my Christmas cards, my real name is Eamon, she called me Eamo, it stuck. Please no more 'Emo' or I might have to change my name to Macca.

How's the new Lamington Drive?
Delicious! So much better than Honey Joys down the road.

Tell us about your new show. Is it an Eamo retrospective?
Health Food of a Nation! is my first ever solo exhibition - a mixed bag of commercial and personal works from the last three years, hanging like Aunty Edna's unmentionables on a Marina Dryer (no, you heard me wrong, not Marina Prior, a Marina Dryer, it's a clothes line). USA editorial illustrations, commercial commissions and personal true-blue portraits as limited-edition fine-art prints, together with carefully and tastefully arranged Australiana and milkbar memorabilia, a wall of milkbar Polaroids, shop goodies like tees, wallets, clocks, decks and a pair of cheeky concrete stalks guarding the TV installation playing vintage Aussie gold telly.

You're converting the gallery into a milkbar?
In a gallery, exhibition type of way, please don't expect it to be an ACTUAL milkbar, there won't be a pie warmer, fly zapper or a bell on the door and we won't be selling Bubble 'O' Bills. But the milkbar does stock some delicious prints, use by date of October 2nd (this is when Health Food of a Nation! closes).

And what about these '70s and '80s VHS and Beta videos you've been collecting? What kind of stuff will you be screening?
Bit of Don (of the Lane variety) scatterings of Daggy Daryl, clips of Marty, black and white cigarette ads, random selection of colour '80s commercials, clips from a YTT Michael Jackson Special including tight rope walking and breakdancing (found in the Prahran oppe shoppe the week he died!) Hogues drinking milk, Edna before she became a Dame, Blind Date gold, Tony Barber, Elise Platt and Pete Smith from Sale and Oswald Q Ostrich.

What, no It's A Knockout?!
Like the Peters Ice Cream cone is the holy grail of Milkbar memorabilia, It's A Knockout is the holly grail of VHS finds. If anybody out there taped it in the '80s and might still have the videos gathering dust in their parents' shed, LET ME KNOW! Billy J Smith and Fiona Mac need to be preserved for future generations!

Is Marty Monster coming?
He'll be there, sort of, in some capacity, of the RGB kind.

Can we have a lift in your Holden?
No way! Because it's a FORD!!!! XB to be precise.

Description:
Flying Nun devotees! You know about Songs, right? The three-quarter Kiwi/Sydney band with a penchant for short, blissful, poppy tunes? If no, then you're in for a treat. And if you have no idea about Flying Nun or (more importantly, and relevantly) Songs, then you are in for an even bigger treat! You need jangly Antipodean pop in your life. So, Songs. They have just released their eponymous album, which is the perfect soundtrack to Spring 2010. Oh, and 50% of the band are going overseas/on hiatus soon, so catch this show before you regret it. (On another note: it's nigh on impossible googling this band. They might as well be called 'The And') - JB

Description:
Flying Nun devotees! You know about Songs, right? The three-quarter Kiwi/Sydney band with a penchant for short, blissful, poppy tunes? If no, then you're in for a treat. And if you have no idea about Flying Nun or (more importantly, and relevantly) Songs, then you are in for an even bigger treat! You need jangly Antipodean pop in your life. So, Songs. They have just released their eponymous album, which is the perfect soundtrack to Spring 2010. Oh, and 50% of the band are going overseas/on hiatus soon, so catch this show before you regret it. (On another note: it's nigh on impossible googling this band. They might as well be called 'The And') - JB

What:
The Little Mule Cycle Co. & Cafe

Where:
19 Somerset Pl, Melbourne

When:
Saturdays 9am-3.30pm for now. Watch the website for updates.

Contact:
0402 212 052 or cycle@thelittlemule.com

Related links:
Bikes, parts and magazines in the Little Mule Co. store

The life of a cafe scoop hunter is fraught and frenetic. Always looking over your shoulder, wondering what other fruitloop with a laptop and internet access is two steps behind you, ready to report the earth shattering news that another guy is attempting to sell coffee to Melbourne's twitching populace. Oh yes. People invite me to the parties. I can't go. I'm always watching. Waiting. Poised like Captain Ahab's harpoon. And, until today, the Little Mule Co. has been my white whale. Every week I would walk past. Picture it: nonchalance. The sign was up. the awning was striped. Open? Negatory. Here is a picture of my evil colleague mocking my dedication outside the roller door. Hilarious.

She is laughing on the other side of her face now, though, because the Little Mule is now open on Saturdays. What do they have? Coffee. From the Little Marionette; 'crowd pleaser' blend. What else? Bikes. Single speed; custom frames designed by Ben Bates; nice parts. Furniture. Some of it recycled from the old Botany Bay Woolsheds; colonial handiwork right there. Magazines; Bone Shaker, specifically. Food. Bircher; bagels; fresh; organic. In the cafe scoop system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the folks who just want a coffee; and the dedicated reporters who seriously need to chill out. These are their stories. 

What:
The Little Mule Cycle Co. & Cafe

Where:
19 Somerset Pl, Melbourne

When:
Saturdays 9am-3.30pm for now. Watch the website for updates.

Contact:
0402 212 052 or cycle@thelittlemule.com

Related links:
Bikes, parts and magazines in the Little Mule Co. store

The life of a cafe scoop hunter is fraught and frenetic. Always looking over your shoulder, wondering what other fruitloop with a laptop and internet access is two steps behind you, ready to report the earth shattering news that another guy is attempting to sell coffee to Melbourne's twitching populace. Oh yes. People invite me to the parties. I can't go. I'm always watching. Waiting. Poised like Captain Ahab's harpoon. And, until today, the Little Mule Co. has been my white whale. Every week I would walk past. Picture it: nonchalance. The sign was up. the awning was striped. Open? Negatory. Here is a picture of my evil colleague mocking my dedication outside the roller door. Hilarious.

She is laughing on the other side of her face now, though, because the Little Mule is now open on Saturdays. What do they have? Coffee. From the Little Marionette; 'crowd pleaser' blend. What else? Bikes. Single speed; custom frames designed by Ben Bates; nice parts. Furniture. Some of it recycled from the old Botany Bay Woolsheds; colonial handiwork right there. Magazines; Bone Shaker, specifically. Food. Bircher; bagels; fresh; organic. In the cafe scoop system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the folks who just want a coffee; and the dedicated reporters who seriously need to chill out. These are their stories. 

Description:
Well, you've done it now. All those prank sound complaint phone calls to the police have come home to roost. Now the Mercat will have to close its upstairs party space. Sure, the downstairs space will be bigger and better than ever, but more on that later when we've finished kicking you in the nuts. And now, on to the closing party. Myles and Daragh have booked Flight Facilities to headline. And they're supported by Andee Frost, Ooh-Ee, Otologic, Roman Bruce, Opulent DJs, Kablam, D. Ceed, Superchang and Awesome Wales. Party of the week! For some people. People who are feeling just fine in the scrotal area. - PM