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After a mid-ocean collision with Death’s ship, Miguel, Tomas and Number Two find themselves off the shore of Isla Calavera. All well and good, until Death wades assure and finds himself at the mercy of some knee-high opposition…

Starring:
Lawrence Aitchison as Miguel Huesos
Matthew Smith as Tomas ‘Red’ Encion
Stanley Brain as Number Two & Valora DeCazador
Stuart Moncrieff as Death
Guillermo Fiori as Pilot

Written and produced by Matthew Smith

 

 Tierra de los Muertos, Part 07 [6:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (404)

It’s no secret that Nightlight and China have never seen eye to eye. While I’ve been content to make funny radio shows, they seem to limit their activity to building great walls and banning innocent websites. Now I know, I know, this article is going to stray into ‘me no rikey’ territory. There’s a chance of that. Get your gongs ready, people.

China, as I’m sure that many of you are aware, has a one child policy. Recently they’ve come up with slogans to try and help people see the good side of this policy, and those slogans… well… they haven’t exactly been popular. The light hearted nature of ‘raise fewer babies, but more piggies’ has been lost on the Chinese. And can you blame them? They’re not used to their government being light hearted. They’re accustomed to their government banning innocent comedy websites.

So in an effort to maybe repair some of the bridges I’ve burnt, I’m willing to help China out. China, here’s some slogans you may want to try to help promote this ‘one-child’ malarky.

‘Hey, you on the bike, stop breeding!’
‘I wouldn’t have any more kids… for all the tea round here!’
‘More kids equal less rice for everyone concerned!’
‘1.32 billion people. A fifth of the world. That should do it, we’ve got it covered now!’

You don’t have to thank me right away!

Tierra de los Muertos, Part 06

Cast adrift in the Empty Sea, Miguel, Number Two, and Tomas are rescued by a shashbuckling adventure who is on his own quest for the far off distant land of Isla Calavera!

Starring:
Lawrence Aitchison as Miguel Huesos
Matthew Smith as Tomas ‘Red’ Encion
Stanley Brain as Number Two
Stuart Moncrieff as Death

Written and produced by Matthew Smith

 

 Tierra de los Muertos, Part 06 [6:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (505)

I’ve bid Sydney adios. It occurs to me that before I pack up my computer and put it into storage, I should maybe do one final post on Nightlight. So here it is.

Nothing much is going to change on Nightlight. There’ll be updates still, there’ll be fun, there’ll be podcasts. So from your perspective, little will change. Although for me… I’ll be living on the other side of the country, backpacker style. I have what I need - clothes, a macbook, and a guitar. And I couldn’t be looking forward to it any more than I am.

So for those who talk to me on messenger, I might be a bit scarce for quite a while. But hey, you all have facebook, don’t you? If not, why not? I’m on there. There’s a Nightlight Productions group on there as well. Go and join the fun and catch up on my escapades. Facebook is a wonderful thing for that, as well as other things. Incidentally, happy birthday, Limpy. All my love, in a totally manly way, in your general direction!

Tierra de los Muertos, Part 05

Miguel, Tomas, and Number Two depart on their aquatic adventure to the far off distant land of Isla Calavera. Death appears before they leave with a final (and sincere) offer of help.

Starring:
Lawrence Aitchison as Miguel Huesos
Matthew Smith as Tomas ‘Red’ Encion
Stanley Brain as Number Two
Stuart Moncrieff as Death

Written and produced by Matthew Smith

 

 Tierra de los Muertos, Part 05 [6:11m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (461)

Tierra de los Muertos, Part 04

Miguel takes Tomas and Number Two to see the Great Sage, who provides a final bit of vital exposition, and points them in the right direction of the Gates of the Afterlife, which lie on the lost Isla Calavera!

Starring:
Lawrence Aitchison as Miguel Huesos
Matthew Smith as Tomas ‘Red’ Encion
Stanley Brain as Number Two
Godfrey Tanner as The Great Sage
Stuart Moncrieff as Death
Casey Scott as Avegail Cervantes

Written and produced by Matthew Smith

 

 Tierra de los Muertos, Part 04 [6:17m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (477)

I stumbled into Die Hard 4.0 (as it was weakly called here in Australia) about seven minutes late and apparently having missed a fair slice of action. I didn’t care though: it was a movie I’d been looking forward to for quite a while, and it didn’t disappoint me. For a large part of the movie I had to switch my brain off, yes. I had to accept the scene where John McClane crashes a car into a helicopter, or runs along the wings of a fighter jet… and this I could do.

But now we reach the dangers of reading too much on the internet. I think, to some extent, it takes the fun out of movies. Not that I read spoilers or plot points, but I did stumble across the fact that Die Hard 4 was edited down to a PG rating in the US. So since I was looking for it, I noticed it. I missed John McClane using swear words like it’s a second language. I missed the uncensored ‘yippie ki-aye’s that were so sincere in previous movies where dying was hard. And yes, the action was excessive at times to the point where it was unrealistic. Despite this, it’s probably not saying much for cinema this year, but hey - best movie so far this year that I’ve seen. Actually, maybe that doesn’t say much for me.

Bruce Willis gets covered in blood, and needs to be given a comfy seat and a blanket. The hacker guy didn’t try and sell me a mac. The special effects weren’t as cheesy and bad as Transformers (Hoo boy, now I’m in for it…).

One worrying fact is that Hollywood isn’t letting Bruce Willis rest. Or Harrison Ford. Or Sylvester Stallone (although I think most of us would prefer it if he stopped). It seems we have no decent upcoming action heroes, so we’re currently relying on the old guard to get us through the decade. I’m genuinely serious about this - I think The Rock missed his chance, and Brendan Frasier is too pretty to have the crap beaten out of him and still be appealing. Help me out, people: am I missing something?

Happy Birthday, Little Johnny

John Howard celebrates his birthday in style, with a little surprise from his loyal foreign minister, Alexander Downer.

Starring:
Matthew Smith as John Howard and Alexander Downer
Stanley Brain as Peter Costello and the Security Guard

Written by Matthew Smith
Produced by Stuart Moncrieff

 

 Happy Birthday, Little Johnny [3:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (526)

I’m going to stand up and say it loud, say it proud: I am so glad that I didn’t waste money on seeing this movie. You can interpret that however you like it - a friend may have paid for a ticket, or I may be indulging in pirate copies - I’ll leave it up to your imagination. But there is no way to deny that when I saw the word ‘Hasbro’ at the start of the movie, I felt a chill up my spine. Not since the days of Barbie has a movie based on a toy line been so widely anticipated.

The transformers didn’t look remotely convincing. Shia LaBouf is meant to be the next Tom Hanks - lets see him act with a dog ‘Turner and Hooch’ style, it isn’t going to happen!

At the start of the film, Shia is trying to flog all his grandfather’s stuff, what is essentially priceless family heirlooms, literally from the 1840s, to get his car payments. This ends in bad news, his teacher gives him an overly generous grade, goes home, trips over a foosball table that he has in his room, puts his gear down near one of at least three computers that are loitering around the room… I mean, hello Shia, if you’re trying to raise a bit of coin, you think maybe there are other things you can sell!?

And you’d think the movie would get very ‘Hulk smash’ with giant robots and cities being in the way. And while it does get like this towards the end, Michael Bay seems to be way more interested stuffing around with a nerd who’s trying to score action with a hot chick! Let me tell you something people, I was a nerd in high school, and if you think that the hot girl is going to realise that she doesn’t want the rich muscly football jock with the nice car and would much rather be with the nerdy guy who’s in a beaten up old smoke belching thing, clambering for her boobs and making lame excuses about seatbelts, then hey, you’re in for a shock. My encyclopedic knowledge of Star Trek got me nothing in high school!

And when you think about it, the ending couldn’t have been more creepier if it tried. What’s with Optimus Prime and the rest of the perverts loitering around while Shia gets it on with the hot chick on Bumblebee’s chest? That is very weird. That is very ‘Eight Transformers of Interest’ right there.

Tierra de los Muertos, Part 03

With the help of a mail order encyclopedia (Tales From the Land of the Dead, volume 1), Death learns more about the legend of the Chosen One and how he will lead the way to the Gates of the Afterlife.

Starring:
Lawrence Aitchison as Miguel Huesos
Matthew Smith as Tomas ‘Red’ Encion
Stanley Brain as Number Two
Stuart Moncrieff as Death

Written and produced by Matthew Smith

 

 Tierra de los Muertos, Part 03: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (467)