Wyoming-ish

The weather here is remniscent of Wyoming - cold and miserably windy. Paul and I were to join Ellen in New York City and shop a bit, see the windows, the Rockafellar center tree from Hamilton, etc., but the weather was predicted to be "Wyoming-ish" so we stayed home. Instead, Paul and I went to see the movie "Australia" - a sweeping epic set in the continent by that name, just prior to, and at the start of, WWII. As a sweeping epic, it had all the predictable elements and won't win any awards for directing, but it was overall, a nice movie. It was rather an old-fashioned western meets World War II. A predictable subplot (and perhaps the real reason for the movie) was the removal of the aborigonie mixed race children by the 'evil' Catholic Church, in league with the nasty, judgemental whites and the government; but it was somewhat redeemed by at least one priest who bravely went to rescue the children, despite being an obvious whimp. Some of the special effects were astonishing, for example, during the bombing of the town by the Japanese (who must be getting tired of constantly being the bad guys), but there was a cattle drive stampede, where all the cattle looked like little computer-generated clones. Oh well. It beat the heck out of freezing in NYC. We'll have to see if we go in tomorrow, or wait.