Mayor to put the ‘Earth’ in ‘Earth Hour’

April 4, 2007 at 10:18 am (Articles, NEWSFLASH)

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By Honey Gillard
 
THIS just in – Earth Hour is to go GLOBAL!!!!
 
Representatives say that Sydney will take the moral message of Earth hour to the world, in an upcoming metting of world-wide city leadsr, in New York. Clover Moore, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, has received a personal invitation from the mayors of London and New York – Ken Livingstone and Michael Bloomberg – to join in the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group. Moore will attend the group’s meeting in the coming month.
 
The  meeting will also seat representative from Paris, Tokyo, Jakarta, Rome and Delhi. Hopefully they will get the ‘Earth Hour’ fever that we all recently caught.
 
“Environmental quality is an increasingly important factor in the competitiveness of global cities,” Moore stated. “Instead of waiting 20 to 50 years for old commercial buildings to be replaced, Sydney’s program delivers greenhouse gas reductions through tenancy fit-outs during lease turnovers which can occur every three years.”
 
Moore also commented on how other member cities could learn a lot from Sydney’s 3CBDs scheme –a scheme that the North Sydney, Parramatta and City of Sydney councils collaborate on, discussing and acting out ways to improve the green credentials of city buildings and their tenants.
 
A recent AMR Interactive poll discovered that 53 per cent of Sydneysiders switched off their lights for Earth Hour. It was also revealed that the Earth-hour-ers were more predominantly women than men. The highest particapation on the truly splendid event came from the innercity. An auxiliary 28 per cent of citizens had considered taking part but had in the end forgot. 77 percent of Sydney residents revealed that  if their was to be a follow-up ‘Earth Hour’ that they would take part.
 
Energy Australia’s retail general manager, Tim O’Grady, said he hoped households and businesses would take the next step to make homes energy efficient, such as switching appliances off when not in use and discarding old fridges.
 
Energy Australia calculated electricity use during Earth Hour, and surprisingly found out that in the vicinity of the CBD energy use was cut by a whole 10.2 per cent –that’s 48,760 kWh of electricity saved. This sum is equivalent to the amount needed to run more than 800,000 60-watt light bulbs for one hour.
 
Woah! And that’s only Sydney’s results….
 
To read more from me, Honey,visit my blog – honeyz818.wordpress.com
 
Sources: SMH

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‘Cinderella Man’ is fairy-tale magic

April 4, 2007 at 9:10 am (Reviews)

By Honey Gillard
 
QUESTION: What do you get when you put Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger and Paul Giamatti in a boxing ring during the Great Depression and get ‘A Beautiful mind’s director Ron Howard directing? ANSWER: A truly splendid Cinderella story, full of strength, ambition, sacrifice, love and morality – ‘Cinderella Man’.
 
Set to the backdrop of the sympathetic Great Depression, ‘Cinderella Man’ tells the fact-based story of a common hero and former boxing sensation James J. Braddock (Russel Crowe) – aka Cinderella Man who loses all his possessions and savings with the crash of the stock market. His beloved wife Mae Braddock (Renee Rellweger) and their 3 children are put through starvation and heating deprivation, as well as many other challenges supported by their love. James is broken-down, beaten-up and out-of-luck, he’s career appears to have reached it’s end, he’s struggling to pay the bills and now the only thing that matters to him – his family – is in danger. In 1934, when Jim’s former coach and manager Joe Gould (Paul Giamatti) offers him a chance to return to boxing, he becomes the symbol of hope for hopeless people in a ruined nation.
 
“Adversity cause some men to break, others to break records’’ is the key theme to this moving movie.
 
On first impression, this movie would appear as a boxing film, with it’s over-dramatised boxing scenes and with a plot line revolving around boxing, but it is much more than that. The artificial and exaggerated boxing scenes are there to show how much James would sacrifice for his family; how much he would put himself through both mentally and physically for them. It adds greatly to the impact and emotion of the story.
 
Whilst over-viewing the movie’s cast and pondering upon whether there could have been actors who would have portrayed the characters more efficiently, my mind went blank. I couldn’t think of anyone apart from Russel Crowe, Miss Renee Zellweger and ‘Big Fat Liar’s Paul Giamatti. I was left barely with the thought that Russell Crowe is the ‘Gladiator’ of this movie – triumphing and laughing in poverties face.  Whoever chose the cast done a hell of a good job. Russel Crowe depicts Jim Braddock so greatly and closely you start calling Russel Crowe, James Braddock, it just sticks in your mind. Within the first 10 minutes you already feel emotionally connected to Jim. Both moving and formulaic, this boxing saga is buoyed by Russell Crowe’s often outstanding performance.
 
There is a scene contained in the movie where a man is about to turn off the heating and electricity of the Braddock family’s home. This scene to me shows the hieght of the desperatiuon the Braddock family is in. During the movie there is also a scene where Mae goes to visit Joe’s house and she sees that he has sold many of his possessions, in order to pay James; in order to pay him to fight, to help the Braddock family. It is a chief scene of hope and shows that there is faith and support for the underdog, which is perhaps the primary motive behind this novel – the little guy can come out on top.
 
Howard, who previously collaborated with Crowe on the Oscar-winning ‘A Beautiful Mind’, lets ‘A Cinderella Man’ out into the public eye with a confident hand, as it guides us through boxer James J. Braddock’s back story. A story that had all the makings for a lengthy sob story, which was lengthened by wanton flourishes that screenwriter Akiva Goldsman adds to provide further drama and tissue-material for Braddock’s story – in true ‘Hollywood’ spirit..
 
This movie leaves you with a glimpse of hope, that you can overcome anything if you just believe and never give up, you can reach that star that seems so distant in the sky. This movie is definitely a good one to catch if you’re feeling a little un-inspired or unlucky or if you are just into moral stories about the underdog – or boxing for that matter. It will make you value all those smaller things in life and show you that things could in fact be worse. So get out there and find the ‘Cinderella Man’ inside yourself and at your local video store.

To read more about this fairy-tale film of triumph and adversity visit: IMDB

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